


Game of Hearts

by Euterpein



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (But not to each other), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Arranged Marriage, Aziraphale is a Butler, Crowley is a Prince, F/F, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:08:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23387887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euterpein/pseuds/Euterpein
Summary: Crowley had known all his life that his role in life was to be married off to further the interests of his kingdom, but that didn't mean he was prepared when his parents approached him about an unusual match just before his nineteenth birthday. Their request plunges him into an unfamiliar world of pomp and circumstance, and a certain blue-eyed butler draws his eye...
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 52
Kudos: 72





	1. Introductions

Crowley stood just outside the imposing oak doors of the royal advisory chamber, trying to work up the courage to reach out and knock. He hadn’t stepped inside this chamber for years; as the youngest of his parents’ seven children he wasn’t privy to the important goings-on of the kingdom beyond what rumors his servant gossiped to him while she served his suppers, and he hadn’t been  _ summoned  _ here since he had put a frog down the dress of a visiting dignitary’s daughter when he’d been twelve. The memory of his father’s deep, cool displeasure and his mother’s white-hot rage had been more than enough to steer him clear of these doors since.

Still, one did not ignore the direct summons of the King and Queen of the realm, especially not for silly childhood fears. He stood up straighter than he normally managed and took a breath, then reached out and knocked smartly on the oak. His father’s booming voice answered almost immediately, and he twisted the copper-wrought door handle to step inside. 

The room was much as he remembered. The bulk of it was taken up with a long table in the center, currently strewn haphazardly with maps and scrolls. When he had still been young enough to be at his mother’s knee at all times he had been allowed to run around during meetings, playing idly with toy soldiers while his parents and their royal advisors debated this happening or that. He could almost hear the low grumble of their serious voices echoing off the stone. 

Tonight, though, no round table of stone-faced folk peered at him from over their glasses or grumbled when he got underfoot. The only light spilled out from the fireplace on the far wall, by which his parents sat alone in tall-backed chairs arranged for more intimate conversation. Crowley swallowed again, then made his way over to them rather stiffly and made an attempt to stand at attention. “Father, mother.” He said, formally, nodding to them each in turn.

His parents’ quiet conversation had broken off when he had entered the room, and they appraised him with soft smiles that did nothing at all to calm his nerves. 

His father made a sweeping gesture at one of the chairs opposite. “Sit down boy, there’s no need to be as nervous as all that. You’re shaking like a leaf. We’re here to talk, not punish you.” Crowley sat gingerly on the edge of his seat, mind whirling with the possibilities of what they might want to speak to him about.

He hadn’t done anything of any real note lately, good or bad, not that he could think of. While he’d had a major trickster’s streak as a child, much of the novelty had worn off after most of the castle had learned that any coins they stumbled across in the flagstone hallways were almost definitely glued there. The geography, English, and sword fighting lessons he was taking with his tutors were coming along at a mediocre pace at best; he was a lazy creature at heart, and didn’t see much point in taking up a prince’s studies when he was seventh in line for the throne. 

He turned his eyes to his mother to see if he could glean any hint of what this was about from her. Where his father was large and rather stocky with a coarse brown mane of hair already streaking with silver, his mother was nearly a mirror image of Crowley himself. She was tall and slender like him, with matching coppery locks that cascaded down her shoulders. Her bright green eyes twinkled with mischief and warmth, which at least meant he wasn’t in trouble. Probably.

His father cleared his throat. “Son,” he began, “as you know, your nineteenth birthday is in just a few months.” Crowley nodded, frowning. He wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything. “Your mother and I have been talking, and we think it might be time... well, we believe we may have found a good match for you. For marriage.”

Crowley sat, utterly uncomprehending, for several seconds. There seemed to be a rushing sound coming from somewhere that he realized with a start was coming from the inside of his own head. He opened his mouth to try and answer but only incomprehensible gibberish spilled out, the tangled jumble of his thoughts and his pounding heart made manifest.

His mother reached out a delicate hand and threaded her fingers through his own where they lay, limp and numb, on his lap. “We know it seems soon.” She said soothingly, rubbing a thumb across the back of his hand. “Some of your siblings weren’t married until well into their twenties, and Astrid still isn’t even though she’s ahead of you. The thing is, we’ve found someone we think would be perfect for you, and she’s quite well-off too. It would be good for you and for the kingdom.”

_ She. _ Crowley’s heart was lodged so firmly in his throat he felt suddenly as through he couldn’t quite breathe. He gulped to try and take in air, breaths coming faster no matter how hard he tried to fight them down, and tears threatened to prick at his eyes. “That’s...” He croaked, trying to sound like he wasn’t panicking and failing utterly. “Of c-course. Whatever’s best for the kingdom.”

Crowley had always known this had been coming in an abstract sort of way. His three oldest siblings had all fulfilled their expected roles by going into royalty training, military leadership, and the clergy, respectively. After that, royal children were expected to further the interest of their kingdom by cementing alliances with other kingdoms through marriage. It had been his fate from the moment of his birth, the thing he had been groomed for his entire life. 

He thought desperately of his private chambers two floors below, and what he would be able to carry with him when he ran. Where would he go? He’d have to leave the kingdom or he would surely be recognized. He had almost no money of his own, and no knowledge of how to survive the world outside the castle he had always called home. Would his servant run with him? Tracy was loyal to him, he thought, if a little frail...

He was startled out of this frantic train of thought when one of his father’s large, calloused hands slipped into the hand of Crowley’s not already claimed by his mother. His father was looking down at him with kind, almost pitying eyes. “Listen, Anthony, your mother and I are not... unaware of your... proclivities.” 

Crowley’s heart plummeted from his throat to the pit of his stomach in a heartbeat. He had never spoken to anyone about his preference for his own gender. Not even to Astrid, the sibling to whom he was closest in age and with whom he was nearly inseparable. He was pretty sure Tracy knew, but if she suspected she’d never mentioned it. It was a subject that everyone knew about but wasn’t spoken of, except as whispers or courtyard taunts. He had heard the way other boys would jeer and use horrible names. He knew what his life could be like if such knowledge about him got out. 

“We know, and we don’t care.” His father continued. Crowley stilled in his panic a moment, looking up at his father with wide, scared eyes.

“We don’t.” His mother insisted, squeezing his hand reassuringly. “This girl we’ve found for you, we’ve been talking with her parents for years. Ever since we began to suspect.” She shared an incomprehensible expression with his father before continuing, “She’s like you. Or, not like you, that is. She fancies girls. She wouldn’t have any... expectations of you that you might not be comfortable with.”

At this point, Crowley’s jaw was slack with sheer incomprehension. The words they were saying didn’t make any  _ sense. _ Someone like him? His parents were fine with this?  _ Expectations? _

“It’s a lot more common than you might think.” His father murmured. “Not unusual to make this kind of delicate inquiry when talking marriage arrangements. Saves a lot of trouble down the line.” 

“What we want is for you to be happy.” His mother said, her smile now tinged with sadness. “We know it’s not a perfect life, not what we’d give you if we could, but... think about it, won’t you?” 

Crowley stayed silent for a full minute. The panic he’d been holding at bay since the conversation started seemed to have ebbed slightly, but he still felt more lost than he ever had. “Why now?” He finally rasped. “Why can’t I wait another couple of years?” He looked between them, feeling distinctly like a child begging his parents for candy. Or a prisoner, begging for mercy from his executioner. 

His mother’s face turned down into a distinct frown. “Unfortunately, her parents were killed at sea a month ago.” Her voice was lowered, reverential, as if the dead could be disturbed by being spoken about in this quiet space. “She’s due to be crowned in a few weeks, and the traditions of her people dictate that she marry within six months.”

Crowley’s head shot up in alarm. “Wait,  _ crowned? _ I’d be marrying the  _ Queen? _ I don’t think I want to be a king, especially not in some kingdom I’ve never even visited.”

“You wouldn’t be, quite.” His father explained. He seemed to sense that the worst of Crowley’s panic had passed and gave their clasped hands one last squeeze before he sat back in his chair. “They do things a little differently in her kingdom. She’d be the Queen, but you’d only be a Prince since she’s the one who inherited the throne. If you did ever... produce any heirs, they’d be directly in line, though. You’d be important, for sure, but you wouldn’t have quite so many responsibilities or as much power as she would.”

“ _ Good.”  _ Crowley said emphatically, making both of his parents chuckle. 

“You see why we thought she might be a good choice.” His mother’s eyes were twinkling again. 

He nodded, unable to resist a hesitant little smile of his own. “Yeah, I do. Can I... think about it? Just for a while?”

His father stroked his beard, thoughtfully. “For a while, son, but think quickly. She’ll need to marry someone before the time’s up or her advisors will pick someone for her, and she doesn’t want to be stuck with someone... not like you... any more than you do.” 

“I will.” Crowley said. When it seemed like there was nothing else to be said he stood, nodding at his parents again in turn before heading off towards the door. His head was still spinning, but it was a gentle motion now, more like the fluid sensations he’d felt after one too many cups of mead than the tilting of the world off its axis. It wasn’t until he reached the doorway that he realized he didn’t know anything about this princess, or where she was from. 

He turned back to where his parents still sat by the fire, carrying on a conversation in whispers. “Er-- this princess, what kingdom is she becoming the Queen of?” He asked. His parents looked at each other, again engaging in some kind of silent conversation Crowley couldn’t decipher.

“Brittany.” His father responded simply after apparently losing a battle of wills with his mother. 

“Brittany.” Crowley responded, barely hearing. “Right. Thanks.” He floated back out into the hallway and all the way down the flights of stairs into his chambers before the implications of the word really hit him. Brittany, by far the most powerful of the kingdoms in this  _ hemisphere _ , much less this continent. Home of Londinium, easily the largest and oldest merchant city on this side of Rome. The one that made his parents’ kingdom look like a terribly scruffy and frozen little backwater in the middle of nowhere.  _ That  _ Brittany. 

Oh, he was so  _ fucked. _

\------------------------------------------------

Two weeks later, he packed his somewhat sparse collection of personal items into the back of a horse-drawn carriage and left everything he had ever known behind. It had been almost funny, and almost sad, to discover that he really didn’t have much. He’d been able to pack a few of his favorite outfits and his meager collection of books. Enough to fill only a few bags even with the heavy furs required this far north. Tracy, who had squealed excitedly and insisted on coming with him when he’d broken the news, had nearly twice as much stowed away below the carriage. 

“Don’t worry about all the clothes.” His father had told him, clapping him on the back heavily enough that he had nearly dropped the bag in his hands. “I’m sure you’ll be well provided for in your new home.” It hadn’t made Crowley feel better. 

Everything he  _ had _ was in the castle that was already beginning to disappear behind the snow-laden mountain their carriage was carefully navigating. It was in Astrid, whose eyes had welled up with tears when he’d told her, into whose warm embrace he had shed his own tears. Of happiness or grief, neither could say. It was the cold stone of the hallways in winter, the childhood memories of his siblings’ voices echoing as they played with their wooden swords. It was even in his oldest brother, who had clapped him on the back and given him the kind of knowing eye that had made Crowley’s stomach turn a little. All of that disappeared behind him one hoof-beat at a time.

His parents had elected to travel with him and Tracy. They’d urged him to make his choice quickly so that they could arrive in Londinium early enough for his bride-to-be’s coronation, about which they were obnoxiously excited. He had a sneaking suspicion that if it had been only his wedding and not such a prestigious (and decidedly politically advantageous) event they might not have come. Crowley spent much of the ride slumped back on the hard bench seat, tucked into his furs against the cold and trying his best to sleep through as much of the ride as he possibly could.

They passed through the small towns and villages that made up much of the kingdom. People waved as they recognized the royal crest on the side of the carriage, lifting their arms and calling out from where they shepherded sheep or chopped wood by the narrow dirt road. Crowley waved back, smiling tiredly, overtaken by a sudden urge to memorize even these faces of home. 

Once they reached the coast they transferred to a small ship. One or the other of his parents would travel on occasion, but he had never been lucky enough to accompany them on their trips to the mainland, so the creaking of the sails and endless waves on all sides was a new experience. At least he had his own chamber in the bowels of the thing. Not that it did him much good; the rocking of the ship turned his stomach, and he barely slept over the three-day voyage. 

Finally, finally, Crowley was awoken from an uneasy slumber by the clamoring cacophony of bells ringing. He clambered out of bed and onto the deck of the ship, barely caring that the wind was passing right through his sleep clothes. Londinium. They were an hour or so away yet, but already he could hear its clamor. There seemed to be people  _ everywhere, _ so many tiny little dots of motion against the unfamiliar backdrop. The city rose and spread away from the docks as far as Crowley could see and further, larger and more populous than anywhere he had ever been, stretching on seemingly forever. Crowley fought back a mixture of both excitement and panic. He jumped when a hand landed on his shoulder, startling him, but it was only his mother.

“You can see the palace if you look there.” She pointed to a large stone structure off in the distance, rising well above the rabble surrounding it. It was much bigger than the castle he’d grown up in and by far more grand; stained glass and brightly colored banners teased at his eyes, visible even at this distance. “Your new home.” His mother said, proudly.

Crowley just swallowed, and looked forward as his new world rushed up to meet him. 

The city was even more overwhelming up close. People crowded the docks where they moored the ship, haggling for freshly caught fish or peddling their wares to the sailors and citizens jostling each other along the road. Crowley found himself clinging to Tracy’s arm as they disembarked, clutching for any scrap of familiarity in this sudden rush of sights and smells, and she was kind enough not to comment. 

A coach had been sent to receive them. It stood well apart from the throngs, a huge carriage polished to within an inch of its life and bearing Brittany’s royal crest, drawn by four black horses hands taller than any he’d seen back home. They had feathers strapped to their heads. Crowley couldn’t think for the life of him why. This time he kept his face pressed to the coach’s window the whole duration of the ride, much more comfortable taking in the sights from behind a protective layer of glass. The shabbiness of the docks gave way to manor homes packed tightly together in an odd vertical fashion and eventually to wide grassy areas. These gave Crowley pause. They were too immaculate to be wild, too near to the city, and he realized after a few moments that they meant the coach was getting close to the palace; only the very rich could maintain polished grounds like that in a city like this.

A footman stepped up to open the door of the carriage for them the moment the horses drew to a halt, and several others jumped into action to whisk their bags away before they had even managed to clamber out onto the pristine white gravel. 

Crowley felt intensely out of place as the footman politely led them into the palace proper, keeping up a constant narration of the interesting places and artefacts they were passing by as they made their way through seemingly endless passageways. Everything and everyone here was absolutely immaculate, pressed and shiny and proper, and Crowley had never felt less at home stuck there in his furs that stank of the sea and a week’s travel. It made his skin crawl. Even his parents, who had always seemed so imposing and elegant, seemed shrunken and barbaric in this glittering place.

They were led deep into the heart of the palace to a set of private guest rooms. “Please rest and make yourselves comfortable.” The footman told them in his intimidatingly posh accent. “The Princess will see you at half past six for supper. There are baths and fresh wardrobes that have been made available for you to freshen up after your travels.” He bowed then and excused himself, leaving them to explore their rooms. Crowley’s private suite was bigger than his and Astrid’s chambers combined had been back home. It was decorated artfully with fresh fragrant narcissi and very odd paintings depicting various people who had apparently forgotten how to finish the whole “putting clothes on” business. Tracy puttered around while he sat on the pillowy four-poster, pulling his clothes out from the bags the porters had brought up to be hung in the wardrobe. 

“I’m going to go and see if someone can bring me a hot iron for your evening clothes.” She told him, pinching his cheek in a way that made him grumble. “Why don’t you go and have a bath? Can’t have your intended meet you smelling like the wrong end of a horse!” 

He moaned dramatically, but had to admit she had a point. Once she had slipped out into the hallway to flag someone down Crowley dragged himself off the bed to the door he assumed led to an attached bathroom. From what the footman had said he had expected a bath to have already been made ready for him, but instead of a basin full of warm water he was presented with a rather curious copper monstrosity. It had odd twisty mechanisms on one side and was very clearly empty. He blinked at it for a few moments, unsure of what to do, before making his way gingerly over to it. The mechanisms appeared to be porcelain handles attached to a series of pipes leading away from the curious basin. One was labeled “cold” in a delicate hand-painted script he could barely read, and the other was labeled “hot.” Grunting, he twisted the handle labeled “hot” towards himself out of curiosity and nearly jumped out of his skin when a gush of water came roaring out of the tap and splashing into the tub. Crowley stared at it with incredulity, eventually gathering the presence of mind to grab the rubber stopper on a chain and plug it into the drainage hole at the bottom of the basin. The level rose slowly in the tub as steam billowed off the (apparently) magically warmed water, filling the air with unfamiliar warmth and moisture. 

Once the tub was full and he’d experimented with adding the contents of some of the colorful perfumed bottles that had been set next to the basin, he shrugged off his furs and underclothes and slipped into the water. 

It was  _ incredible. _ Back home, when he’d wanted a bath, it had taken the servants the better part of an afternoon to heat and carry all the water. By the time they were done it had inevitably cooled down to lukewarm. This, though, this was something else entirely. He could feel the stress of the days of travel and cramped conditions melting away as he laid back against the heated metal, the rich oils he’d added filling his nose with the scents of lavender and rose. A token effort was made to scrub at his hair and the road grime caked into his skin, after which he allowed himself to just enjoy the sensation. He thought vaguely that the nearly overwhelming warmth of it should be uncomfortable, stifling like a hot summer’s night, but it only made his eyes droop in lazy contentment. No, it wasn’t uncomfortable at all...

He startled awake some time later, so disoriented it took him a few moments to remember where he was and why his limbs felt so unnaturally heavy. The water was still warm, so at least he probably hadn’t been in the tub for hours, though his fingers had pruned beyond all recognition. He growled softly at them before carefully leveraging himself up out of the water. He hissed as his feet made contact with the cold porcelain tile, and he danced from one foot to the other as he pulled the plug on the (now vaguely grimy) bath water and scooped his furs off the floor. The warm, dry clothes and plush carpet waiting for him back in his borrowed chambers called to him. He hopped awkwardly over to the door without bothering to sling the dirty furs back over himself, glad that if Tracy had already returned with the hot iron she would hardly be shocked by him in the nude (she had changed his diapers, for the gods’ sakes).

Crowley yanked the door back to the bedchamber open roughly, then stopped dead mid-hop. Tracy had returned with the hot iron, as it turned out, but she hadn’t done it alone. Standing just next to where Tracy was ironing was a young man about Crowley’s age with bright blonde curls and blue eyes which widened as he saw Crowley. Whatever he’d been saying to Tracy had died on his lips as Crowley had burst through the door, his distractingly pink lips now dropped open in shock.

“Er...sorry.” Crowley said, face burning in embarrassment. He held the furs a little tighter to his front but otherwise seemed rooted to the spot. Tracy’s hand came up to her lips in an extremely ineffective attempt to hide her laughter, and the young man finally snapped out of his stupor and tried to look anywhere but at Crowley as his cheeks pinked delicately.

“N-not at all.” The young man said, eyes focused determinedly on a random spot on the ceiling. “These are your chambers after all, you’re more than welcome to wear what you like. Or not wear, as it were.” The light blush on his cheeks deepened. Crowley shivered, still dripping rapidly cooling water onto the carpet, unsure of the best way to respond. Tracy seemed to swallow the chuckles that had been threatening to spill out of her and went to grab him a plush towel and a change of clothes from the wardrobe.

“I haven’t finished ironing your evening suit yet.” She told him, face carefully blank. “But this should do for now. Young master Aziraphale here was kind enough to bring me up some things.” 

Crowley grimaced at her, seeing right through her barely concealed mirth. Aziraphale piped up, “Just mister, I’m afraid, not master. I’m on the butlery staff.” He explained to Crowley, forgetting himself for a moment and looking in his direction. His azure gaze seemed to linger for an eternity (though it couldn’t have been more than a couple of heartbeats) on Crowley’s dripping form before he averted his eyes once again, cheeks red enough that Crowley had a sudden urge to write ill-advised poetry about roses. 

“Well, er, thank you anyway.” Crowley said, feeling more exposed than the nakedness alone could explain. “I’ll just-- later.” He slipped back into the bathroom, no longer feeling the cold of the tile at all. 

\------------------------------------------------

The next few days seemed to blur into one another they were so busy. Crowley and his parents were paraded around the entirety of the palace, the grounds, and the important historical and/or cultural artefacts of the city. They attended official dinners with seemingly endless but extremely tiny courses and terrible company; every aging diplomat and royal from every kingdom in this part of the world had come for the Princess’ coronation and wedding, and every single one of them was more insufferable than the last. They sneered down on Crowley with his sharp, northern features and the heavy brouge of his accent. He mostly ignored them anyway, focusing instead on trying to catch glimpses of either his bride-to-be or the young butler he’d accidentally scandalized the day he’d arrived.

They seemed equally, frustratingly, out of his grasp. His bride’s name turned out to be Iris[1], though everyone referred to her almost exclusively as  _ The Princess. _ The closest he’d managed to get so far was three seats down at dinner on the first evening. She was tall for a woman, and handsome, with deep brown hair that fell softly about her shoulders. She had the effortless gentility and grace of someone who had been raised for her role as Queen her entire life. Through the endless diplomatic dinners and functions and the exhausting all-day spectacle her coronation turned out to be (and Crowley would know. His family had a place of honor during the whole boring bloody business, though at least they got to sit down), her face never once wavered from the neutral and almost empty expression that might have been carved out of stone. Still, Crowley knew it was just an act. On that first night she had made eye contact with him, just once, and she had managed to express more sharpness and wit with a look than any of the other guests had in their conversations the entire evening. He had smiled wolfishly back at her and she had looked away, quiet voice carrying on with whatever she’d been saying without a single stumble. That night, Crowley had slept more soundly knowing that he’d found a kindred soul in such an unfriendly place.

The poor butler he’d startled turned out to be just as difficult to (ahem) pin down. Crowley always seemed to spot him at the worst of times; when they were already running late to some function or another, or passing by a window on the complete opposite side of the palace’s extensive grounds. He made the mistake of complaining about this to Tracy, who just teased him mercilessly about wanting to further torment the poor dear. In all honesty, something about the man had stuck with him. There seemed to be thousands of interchangeable butlery types running around the place like particularly done-up cockroaches, but this one just wouldn’t leave Crowley’s mind. Perhaps it was the wide blue eyes that had spoken of both deep intelligence and startling naivety. Or perhaps it was the hair, the likes of which Crowley had never seen before, which had framed his face like the halo of one of the scantily-clad angels these Christians seemed to like to portray in every work of portraiture. Likely, though, it was the way the man had looked at Crowley in the few bare moments he’d allowed himself to. As though he were a man starving, and Crowley a forbidden feast. Whatever the reason, Crowley found his head turning to follow every royal-red frock coat he saw in the palace hallways like a dog following a scent.

Then, finally, the day of his wedding arrived. 

Tracy woke him before the sun had even had a chance to peek out from beyond the horizon. She shooed him, still groggy, into the bath to scrub up before stuffing him into the world’s most uncomfortable uniform. It struck Crowley as some sort of decorative military costume complete with ribbons, which was ridiculous considering Crowley had never so much as  _ been _ on a battlefield. It didn’t even have the decency to be black except for the trousers. Instead the coat was the same royal red and gold that made up the uniforms throughout the palace, and which clashed  _ spectacularly _ with his hair. Finally, an incredibly beautiful and utterly unusable sword was strapped to his waist and he was shoved out of the door to face his fate.

The entire palace had been festooned with flowers in red and gold, filling every hallway with a cacophony of floral scents that distracted the nose nearly as much as the eye. Colorful banners had also been strung up along the walls. He followed the entire contingent of footmen that had been dispatched to accompany him through the palace and across a wide (and equally decorated) lawn to the cathedral. There were people everywhere, those who hadn’t merited an invitation to the limited-seating ceremony milling about on the lawn and gawking at him as he passed by to step through the doors to the huge chapel. 

He’d been there before, during the tours he and his parents had been subjected to, but nothing had quite prepared him for what he found there. On the inside, the red-and-blue color scheme gave way to so much white he was nearly blinded by the light streaming in from the stained glass windows. The tall, vaulted ceilings had been festooned with white ribbon, and nearly every surface had white flowers on white drapery.  _ Not very subtle, these decorators, _ he thought to himself vaguely. 

The pews were packed full of hundreds more attendees. He scanned the crowd for his parents as he was led up the aisle by his phalanx of footmen and spotted them near the front, beaming at him. They looked so out of place in their native fancy garb he almost laughed, but managed to restrain himself. He was positioned at an artful angle away from the pulpit and left there to wait, breath baited.

And wait he did. A wizened old priest that was absolutely drowning in his vestments rattled off an entire sermon in Latin (which Crowley did not speak) followed by a long speech in English (which Crowley largely ignored). Luckily he didn’t appear to be expected to actually  _ do _ anything during all this except stand there and look pretty, which he was happy for right up until the point that his feet began to ache from standing still for so long. He tried to shift from side to side without disturbing the proceedings, though by the vaguely scandalized looks he received from a few of the older attendees he only mostly managed. 

Finally, after what felt like an age, the pipe organ started up a familiar tune and the large double doors behind the pews swung open. 

Iris looked transcendent, of course. White lace beaded with real pearls pulled in at her waist only to spill out behind her for yards and yards. The dress itself was likely worth more than his entire kingdom, but again it was her eyes that struck him. They were focused on him, sharp and fierce and unrelenting.  _ Don’t make me regret this, _ her eyes said as she progressed ever closer down the aisle towards him.

Crowley was hit with a sudden wave of dizzying panic that he only barely managed to swallow down. He’d been moving through the morning in a kind of haze that he now suspected to be a kind of coping mechanism. Now, seeing her like this, it all crashed into him at once. This was happening, this day he had dreaded since he’d been old enough to realize why it was never a woman in a white dress he imagined in his dreams. Since he had realized he could never really fulfill his duties as he would be expected to. Until, suddenly, he had been. It had all just happened so  _ fast.  _ He managed to stay upright as she finally reached him and took one of his shaking hands in hers, though it was a near thing. She squeezed his hand lightly as they both turned towards the priest.  _ Well,  _ he thought,  _ too late to turn back now. _

There was dancing, and dinner, and presents to be opened, and suddenly the sun had set long enough ago that the oil lamps cast their dim glow over increasingly drunken revelers. Crowley was near dead on his feet by the end of it. Celebrations could be heard echoing throughout not only the palace but the city around them, the Queen’s wedding practically a new holiday in the eyes of her loyal subjects. 

Iris held up somewhat better than he did, but even her shoulders slumped with exhaustion by the time they were able to leave the hall they’d moved the wedding party to after the ceremony. To Crowley’s surprise, they were escorted directly to the royal bedchambers by another contingent of decorated footmen. Aziraphale was among them. Crowley tried to catch the man’s eye as they made their frustratingly plodding way through the winding hallways, Iris’ arm still draped through his and train sliding smoothly on the marble behind her, but he seemed to be studiously avoiding looking in Crowley’s direction.

When they finally reached the doors to the royal chambers, the footmen stood to either side after opening them and saluted smartly. Crowley raised his brows, finally giving up on trying to get Aziraphale’s attention and making his way into the room beyond.

The moment the doors closed behind them, Iris slumped against him. “God I hope I never have to do that again.” She said, forehead pressed to his bony shoulder. “You’re not allowed to die so I never have to do that again.”

Crowley felt a startled giggle bubble up from within him at that, only slightly hysterical. “I’ll do my best.” He told her, honestly. 

She turned her face up to give him a slightly wan smile then pulled herself upright again with a soft grunt and moved over to a patch of wall. There was a rope there which she pulled, to Crowley’s utter mystification, before crossing the immense chamber to the four-poster bed. She began to carefully remove the diamonds at her ears and throat.

“What was that all about, by the way?” Crowley asked her, wandering aimlessly over to a high-backed settee and plopping bonelessly down onto it. “The whole saluting business, I mean.” 

Iris rolled her eyes. Having finished with her jewelry, she began to delicately extract her long, brown tresses from their pinned positions on the top of her head. “Oh, that. It’s a tradition. In the old days it was to ensure the new couple was consummating, and they would actually  _ come in and watch, _ but that got stopped a few centuries ago now.” Her face scrunched up in disgust.

Crowley frowned. “‘Consummating?’” He asked. He considered his English to be pretty good, especially with the practicing he’d been doing the last few weeks, but that word was unfamiliar to him. 

Iris flashed him a sharp smile. “You know. Doing their civic duty? Producing heirs for God and Country?” Finally the implications clicked with Crowley and he sputtered, making her laugh. 

“They  _ watched? _ ” He asked, incredulous. 

“Yup.” She replied, still amused at his sputtering. 

“So just now they were, what, thanking us for our  _ service? _ ” His voice was tinged with horror. 

She just shrugged, silky brown hair now falling in ringlets down her shoulder. “Pretty much.”

“Eugh.” Crowley said, eloquently, before stiffening. “You don’t, er, I mean-- we don’t need to...” He trailed off.

She raised an amused eyebrow at him. “Definitely not. Why do you think I married you?” She winked at him, then sighed. “Someday we might have to try it, if none of my younger sisters pump out any other little royal heirs to make my advisors sleep better at night. Until then I intend to let people think I’m barren.”

Crowley slumped, almost embarrassed at how relieved he was. He knew that he was only here in the first place because of the fact that he didn’t  _ want  _ to perform that particular husbandly duty with her, but he still felt as though he were failing some test by admitting it. 

Across the room, a narrow doorway Crowley hadn’t even noticed before opened and revealed a youngish blonde woman. She was dressed in the garb of one of the higher class servants. Her eyes were rimmed with red and her cheeks were blotchy with poorly concealed tears, Crowley noticed, but she kept her voice steady as she spoke: “You called for me, Miss--Ma’am?”

Iris’ shoulders slumped visibly where she stood by the bed. “Grace.” Her voice was heavy with emotion. Crowley frowned in their direction, glancing between them and feeling as though he was missing something.

The servant named Grace looked over to where he was sprawled on the settee, giving him a steely once-over that shocked him coming from someone of her position before turning away. “Do you need help, Ma’am?” She moved over to where Iris stood and began to undo the buttons of the wedding gown with shaking fingers. Iris allowed it, leaning against one of the bedposts to give the girl better access to the buttons lower on her spine, but her face was twisted and unhappy.

It wasn’t until the after the pair had managed to remove the wedding gown, when Grace went to undo the tight lacing of the corsetry beneath and Iris grasped her wrists gently in both her hands, that Crowley understood. Iris held Grace’s hands in her own as a lover might. More tears spilled from Grace’s eyes and Crowley turned away from them, trying to allow them some semblance of privacy as they whispered words of comfort and affirmation to each other. It felt exceedingly intimate, and Crowley wished desperately he could be somewhere else.

Eventually the corset was also removed and they moved back into Crowley’s field of vision, Iris now thankfully covered in a dressing gown. “We’ll be in the attached servants’ quarters.” Iris told him, softly. Her hand was still clasped firmly in Grace’s. “The bed’s all yours.”

Crowley nodded, swallowing, and watched them retreat through the narrow doorway Grace had originally emerged from. He found a nightgown that had been left for him in a wardrobe and made himself ready for bed before sliding alone between the cool sheets of the bed big enough to hold six. The exhaustion of the day, the week, the month weighed on him and his eyelids drooped quickly, the clear memory of bright blue eyes hovering just at the edge of his vision as he slipped under. 

  
  


[1] In ancient Greek mythology, Iris was a messenger to the gods and the personification of the rainbow. 


	2. What's a Prince to do?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley adjusts to his new life in the Palace, and tries to figure out where a certain blue-eyed butler might fit into it...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the lovely [AetherDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AetherDragon/pseuds/AetherDragon) for the beta!

Crowley awoke the next morning the way he had awoken nearly every morning for the last nineteen years: with his servant, Tracy, gently calling his name from beside his bed. He stirred from within the nest he had made for himself; the bed was so big he had to struggle briefly to find a way out of the heaped pillows and blankets, feeling distinctly as though he had been swallowed by some great beast. When he did manage to find his way out of the entangled mess he was met with Tracy’s amused smile.

“I’m glad to see you’re still alive in there, lovey. I was afraid I’d have to send in a rescue party.”

Crowley grinned back, a little embarrassed but so overwhelmingly glad to see a comforting face in that moment that he just couldn’t bring himself to be grumpy about her teasing. “You’re probably not far off, to be honest. You could sleep an army on this thing. Nothing like that goose’s nightmare back home.”

Tracy gave him a good-natured smack on the arm. “You were lucky to have a goose down mattress and you know it, you spoiled thing.”

“Tell that to the pinpricks in my arse,” he quipped back, still grinning. This was an old familiar argument between the two of them, and the normalcy of it was nice. 

Tracy rolled her eyes at him and turned to the wardrobe by the bed he’d found the nightgown in the evening previous. She began sorting through the clothes within, setting out some pieces of daywear for him. “Her Highness is due to take tea in about ten minutes. After that I’m told you’re to report to the Royal Advisors’ Chambers for some meeting or another.”

Crowley frowned, watching her work and scratching idly at the crimson stubble blooming across his jaw. “What about after that?”

“Nothing, as far as I know,” Tracy told him with a shrug. “Laying about in an artistic pique, contributing nothing to society, I suspect. The privileges of being a Prince.”

“Right,” Crowley mumbled, allowing her to bully him into a standing position to get changed, “privileges.”

About fifteen minutes later, Iris slipped back into the room from adjoining servants’ quarters with a rumpled-looking Grace in tow, not sparing Crowley and Tracy more than a glance and a polite nod on their way to the Queen’s wardrobe. Crowley, who had completely and utterly forgotten about the whole ‘marriage of convenience’ business for a few moments, froze. He had dressed and shaved and was now getting the last of the fiddly little buttons of his formal princely jacket done up by Tracy.

To her credit, Tracy showed absolutely no sign that anything was strange with the Queen emerging from the servant’s quarters rather than from her now-husband’s bed. She offered a quick curtsy and a soft “Your Highness” to Iris, who accepted it with nothing more than a rather bleary nod before moving on. 

Crowley eyed Tracy suspiciously. “You knew, didn’t you?” he asked, realizing he sounded a little petulant and deciding he didn’t care whatsoever. 

Tracy quirked an eyebrow at him. “Of course I knew, dear.”

“What, did my parents tell you? About the wedding, about... about me?”

“Oh, of course they did. And told your wife about me knowing; they wouldn’t have sent me with you otherwise. But lovey, I also practically raised you. I’ve known since you were wee.”

Crowley gaped at her, a little unsure whether he was upset or relieved by her very cavalier reaction. “That’s--well, you could have told me.”

“I could have,” she acknowledged, nodding and slipping the last gleaming golden button through its loop near his chin, “but then I would have missed that look on your face.” She winked as he spluttered, and she shooed him to the door still laughing.

Breakfast was apparently an informal affair, or at least as “informal” as anything got around Iris. A small but well-appointed dining room was set just across the hall from the royal chambers. Unseen servants had left a decadent array of fruits, baked goods, a slightly uncomfortable number of eggs in various forms, and various other selections which were all set out against one wall. Tracy insisted that he sit so she could bustle around and gather his favorites onto a plate for him. She poured him a cup of strong tea and placed the plate down in front of him.

Just as Crowley was wondering if it would be impolite to get started without Iris, she stepped into the room, dressed in what appeared to be her standard royal daywear and with Grace still trailing behind her. She sat as Grace moved to serve her much as Tracy had done. Multiple questions sprung to Crowley’s tongue then; was it weird, having your lover also be your handmaiden? Had they fallen in love because of that arrangement, or had she moved Grace into that position because they were in love? How did they keep it a secret in a place where all eyes were always on them?

These seemed far too invasive to ask, especially with the subtle tiredness both women still carried in their shoulders and around their eyes. Instead, he opted to break the slightly heavy silence: “So, what does a Prince actually do around here? No-one’s really bothered to brief me so far.”

Iris glanced up from her tea, surprised. “Have you not been to see the Advisors yet? That’s supposed to be their job.”

“I think that’s what I’m doing after breakfast?” He glanced over to Tracy, who nodded in confirmation.

“Ah, good. Well, let’s see...as Prince of the Realm you have a duchy outside Londinium which comes with an estate. Historically it’s been managed by a local official at the consent of the Crown, but you’re welcome to put your hand in as much or as little or as you like.”

“Wait, a duchy? Like a whole--a castle and towns and subjects and whatnot?”

“Well, they’re still technically my subjects, but you would be the next most direct line of authority between them and me, yes. And it’s a few towns, if I remember correctly.”

Something like a laugh bubbled out of Crowley, but he wasn’t sure it sounded entirely sane.

“As the Queen’s Consort--as opposed to as the Prince--your job is honestly mostly decorative. You’ll be expected to put on a feast in the fall and winter, though most choose to delegate that kind of task to a planner. You’ll need to be at my side for most formal functions, entertain foreign delegations, that kind of thing. But most of the time your job is just... sort of existing.” She gave him an odd sort of look then, almost envious with a touch of apology.

Crowley blinked at that, overwhelmed. At home his days had been filled from dawn to dusk; idle hands got one into mischief, according to his parents, so in addition to his many lessons he was always doing something. He would help in the castle’s kitchen gardens or at the looms and spinning wheels. He would ride around to the various villages and towns in the kingdom to act as his parents’ eyes and ears, hearing the needs and thoughts of his people. Even his spare time was spent with his books or with Astrid. The idea of that much time made him feel slightly adrift.

They passed most of the rest of the meal trading slightly uncomfortable conversation. Iris was a delightful conversationalist, wickedly intelligent and thoroughly well-read (though only the Gods knew where she found the time), but she was still obviously subdued. With Grace standing just off to the side acting every inch the dutiful handmaiden, he supposed he could understand why. 

One of the seemingly endless supply of interchangeable butler-y types showed up just as he was finishing the last dregs of his tea, and he bid all three women goodbye as he made his way to follow him. 

They swept down the maze of impeccably furnished hallways that made up the palace. Crowley had to jog a bit to keep up with the butler that had come to receive him, a slightly older man with a rather severe natural scowl, who more than made up for his short legs with his quick stride. 

A thought came to Crowley, then. “Excuse me--er, sorry, what’s your name?”

The butler’s pace didn’t falter whatsoever. “Shadwell, your Highness.” 

“Right, Shadwell, could you do me a favor?” 

The deepening of the scowl on the man’s face told Crowley that he would likely rather chew glass. “Of course, sire. What can I do for you?” His pace somehow got even quicker, forcing Crowley to nearly jog to keep up.

“Do you know the butler Aziraphale?” He nearly slammed into Shadwell when the man stopped dead in front of him. He spun around and Crowley was treated to a look of deep, distasteful suspicion. 

“I know ‘im. May I ask why?” Not ‘sire’ anymore, Crowley noted.

He cleared his throat, realizing rather belatedly that he didn’t have much of a reason to ask after Aziraphale other than his own desire to see the man again. “He--I--I was hoping he could show me the library?” He tried, not quite managing to prevent the question from slipping into his tone.

Shadwell said nothing, only continuing his glaring. Crowley barreled on, “I’d appreciate it if you could ask him to meet me after my thing with the advisers. To--for the library.”

“Fine,” Shadwell grudgingly agreed, moving off down the hallway once more. “If your Majesty wishes it.” Crowley made a mental note to ask what that was all about, but decided not to test the oddly hostile man when he had agreed to his request.

Shadwell brought him to a set of wide oak doors that reminded Crowley very much of the advisers’ chambers at his parents’ castle, the one where all this had started, and swallowed a bit before opening the door.

The next hour and a half somehow managed to be a huge whirlwind and one of the singularly most boring meetings of his admittedly short life. The Queen’s Advisers were a predictably stuffy and ancient lot, as deferential as Crowley’s new position dictated but with obvious distaste behind the polite smiles. They sneered at his accent, at the way his day clothes hung off his lanky frame, at his lack of knowledge about the affairs of this new Kingdom. He sneered right back, of course. He held his head high and proud as they droned on and on about his responsibilities as the Prince. Despite how long it took, they didn’t manage to impart much more to him than Iris had that morning. When they were done, he thanked them with a wide, polite smile that was full of teeth.

He had been so preoccupied with the insufferable advisers that he had practically forgotten his earlier request to Shadwell. He stepped out of the room at the end, still seething and uncomfortable, and came up short. Aziraphale had come to meet him, as requested. His posture was stiff and formal as he stood with his arms tucked smartly behind him against the opposite wall from Crowley. Just like the evening before, he didn’t meet Crowley’s eyes.

“Sire,” Aziraphale said, tone formal, eyes fixed straight ahead, “you requested that I retrieve you from your meeting?”

“That I did.” Crowley eyed him, frowning. “I was hoping you’d be willing to show me the library, actually. Did Shadwell not tell you?”

A surprised blink. “The library, sire?”

“Just Crowley, please. And yeah. I brought a few of my books from back home, but...” he shrugged, as if that was enough of a reason to summon this particular butler from his duties.

“I--it would be inappropriate for me not to use your title, your Majesty. But of course I would be more than happy to show you to the library. Er, follow me!” and he set off down the corridor at a much more sedate pace than the butler from that morning. 

Crowley padded along next to him. “What was with him, by the way? Shadwell, I mean. He seemed awfully protective of you.” 

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale said, something like embarrassment in his tone, “Shadwell. I came into the Queen’s service, or at that time the King and Queens’ service, quite young, you see. Shadwell sort of took me under his wing. He’s a bit...prickly, but he’s got a good heart under all that scowling.”

“Ah.” Crowley wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. 

Aziraphale seemed to sense his discomfort. “Oh, don’t feel badly for me, my d--er, your Highness, it’s alright. I hardly remember it now.”

That didn’t do much to make Crowley feel any better about it, but he let the subject drop. He was just pleased to see that the frosty, formal air Aziraphale had been adopting around him seemed to be dissipating rapidly, the chattiness he remembered from their rather ill-fated first meeting returning. They turned another corner and Aziraphale stepped up to a small, unassuming door. He withdrew a set of keys from beneath his frock coat and slotted one into the lock. 

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Tight security for a library. Do they think people are going to steal the books?”

“Well, there’s some of that,” Aziraphale admitted, turning the key until there was an audible thunk and stepping back to allow Crowley entry, “but I think part of it is the other way around.”

“What, they’re afraid the books are going to escape?”

“No, of course not.” 

Crowley gasped as he stepped into the library. It was much bigger than he had been expecting from what he had seen of the outside; two stories high with a vaulting ceiling and walls that stretched back dozens of meters, a stained-glass dome at the top raining coloured rays of dappled light across every surface. Tall, tightly packed bookcases weighed down with books filled the entire room apart from a few scattered desks and chairs. 

“A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing,” Aziraphale whispered from behind him. His voice was reverential, almost wistful as he gazed over the endless stacks. 

Crowley turned back to him. “Not a ‘little’ knowledge, I’d say. So they keep it locked to...what, keep the help from getting funny ideas?” 

“Well, I’m sure I couldn’t say, sire.” Aziraphale cast him a slightly nervous glance. 

“Don’t worry, Aziraphale, you’ve got nothing to fear from me. If it were up to me everyone would have access to all the knowledge of mankind. Things’d be better that way. And please, call me Crowley, at least while we’re alone. All this ‘sire’ business is too weird.”

He was rewarded for that with a small, secret smile that warmed him right through. Crowley blinked for a few moments before he managed a rather weak smile back.

“Alright, then, if you insist. Crowley. Was there something in particular you wanted to read?” Aziraphale asked, turning again to the vast collection of tomes around them, “I haven’t been able to much time in here beyond doing the dusting, of course, but I suspect I would be able to help you locate something should you go looking for it.”

“I didn’t have anything in particular in mind,” Crowley admitted. “I’m not that great at reading English, actually. All my lessons were focused on speaking ‘cause they never expected...well, I didn’t think I would need it. They tried in the last couple of weeks, but there’s only so much you can do.”

Aziraphale turned wide eyes on him. “Really? There are some really wonderful authors writing in English, you know, and plenty of works being translated! I could--” he cut himself off, abruptly, biting his tongue on what he had been about to say. 

Crowley very nearly sighed out loud. It would be highly inappropriate for someone of Aziraphale’s rank to offer to tutor a Prince, of course, to imply in any way that they had something a Prince didn’t. Still, every moment he spent with Aziraphale he felt the urge to get to know him grow stronger. He didn’t want their respective ranks to put a damper in that. Besides, he was apparently downright adorable when he was excited about something, an endearing little wiggle in his shoulders and a breathtaking glint in his eye, and seeing that be bit back for the sake of impropriety was now officially a crime in Crowley’s books.

“I’d be really grateful if you could teach me,” Crowley suggested, as-if casually so as not to scare him off. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

A little bit of that tentative joy returned to Aziraphale’s expression, and Crowley cheered on the inside. “Of course I’d be honored to do so!” Aziraphale said, “But surely you’d prefer an actual tutor? I’m only a butler, after all, I’m hardly qualified...”

Crowley did actually sigh out loud this time. “Can I be honest with you, Aziraphale?” 

“Oh! Er, of course you can, si--Crowley.”

Crowley leaned in, letting his voice drop to an overly dramatic whisper: “Honestly, Aziraphale, you’re the only person in this whole bloody palace I’ve found halfway tolerable apart from Iris. I don’t want someone qualified, I want--” you, his mind whispered traitorously to him, “--I want a friend. Someone to talk to. Learning how to read is just a...a side benefit.”

Aziraphale had paled noticeably at the mention of Iris’ name, but his eyes softened as Crowley went on. “Well, in that case...I would love to, Crowley.” He offered Crowley another one of those small, secret smiles, gazing up through those pale eyelashes in a way that made Crowley’s heart seize briefly in his chest. He cleared his throat, feeling suddenly hot all over.

“Right,” he said, forcing himself to turn away from the unadulterated radiance of Aziraphale’s smile and back towards the nearest towering bookshelf, “where do we start?”

They spent the rest of the morning and much of the afternoon there in the library. Aziraphale pulled down some thinner volumes to start with, listening to Crowley sound out words as he encountered them on the page and offering suggestions or helping him with particular vocabulary as needed. This quickly devolved from actual tutoring into something much more recreational; Crowely’s inclination towards laziness and desire to draw Aziraphale out of his shell combined with Aziraphale’s propensity to go off on tangents meant that they often wandered down side paths of conversations, sometimes ending up so far beyond the subject they had started with neither of them could remember how they had got there (and usually neither of them cared in the least to try). By the time their rumbling tummies and Aziraphale’s duties finally drew them back out into the realm of the real world, Aziraphale was able to meet his eye and call him by his name without any hesitation.

They walked together back from the library to the hallway that contained the royal chambers, Crowley purposefully dragging his feet in order to stay in the young man’s presence a little bit longer. Finally, though, they reached the point at which they had to part ways.

“I still don’t understand how you all find your way around this place,” Crowley said, trying to prolong the moment, “I swear all these hallways look the same.”

“That’s by design, you know.” Aziraphale smiled at Crowley’s quirked eyebrow. “Oh, yes. When the palace was originally built, the kingdom was at war and raids by invaders was something of a regular occurrence. The King at the time declared that the architects construct something difficult to navigate specifically so that anybody who made it past the guards would never be able to find him in the maze of it.” 

Crowley gave him a searching look. “Go on, pull the other one.”

“It’s true! Nearly identical hallways, tapestries that are actually doors, doors that are actually just walls or that loop back in on themselves, stairways to nowhere...they did rather a good job of it, actually.”

“Then how do you and the other servants get around? If it’s so hard to navigate, that is.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips, a delightfully teasing glint in his eyes, “What, now you don’t believe me? You were just commenting on how lost you were.”

“Well yeah, but I just got here. ‘S normal,” Crowley answered, grinning back at Aziraphale, “much more reasonable than a tall tale about some king building a maze to keep his enemies out! If that were true you’d have servants getting lost all over the bloody shop.”

“Which is why new hires always move in pairs, one new and one seasoned,” Aziraphale insisted, “so that we can teach them how to get around without getting lost. By the paintings.”

Crowley blinked. “The paintings?” 

“Yes. The hallways are all nearly identical, but the art is all unique. That one there for example,” he pointed at a large, classical piece across the hallway that Crowley had barely bothered to glance at before, “exists only in this very hallway, at the junction of the royal chambers and the hallway that leads directly to parlor number three.” 

“Parlour number three? How many parlours do they need?”

Aziraphale didn’t dignify that question with a response. He turned towards the painting instead, tilting his head in contemplation. “Do you know, I rarely get the chance to examine the paintings in these halls. Many of them are quite beautiful.”

Crowley looked at the painting as well. It was massive, spanning nearly floor to ceiling, and framed in gold filigree intricately worked to portray leaves and apples and wings. It depicted an angel in some sort of garden, wielding a sword that was set aflame and bearing down on a black-and-red serpent. The angel was dressed in flowing white robes that complimented his pure white wings and fluffy white-blond curls. Crowley thought he should have looked angry; he may not have been overly familiar with Christian stories, but he was pretty sure the snake was in for a good smiting if the sword alone was anything to go by. The angel didn’t look angry, though. He looked almost...afraid. The snake, for its part, didn’t appear to be rearing up to defend itself, but was instead poised almost serenely beneath the angel’s oncoming attack.

They stood examining the painting for a short while, side by side but each lost in his own thoughts. “He looks like you, you know,” Crowley said eventually.

“Who, the angel? I don’t think so.”

“No, he does. Look at the hair!”

Aziraphale huffed. “We may have hair of a similar colour, but that doesn’t mean we look alike. He’s quite a bit older than I am, for a start. And he’s...beautiful, in an angelic sort of way.”

You’re beautiful, Crowley barely kept from tripping off his tongue. He bit down on it in an attempt to stop the words from happening and hissed as he accidentally bit a little too hard. “Well, I think you look just like him. Aziraphale the angel, that’s you.” 

He was delighted to see a bit of a rosy color bloom on Aziraphale’s cheeks at that, his blue eyes dipping down and away in embarrassment. “I’m hardly an angel, I assure you, Crowley.” 

“Too late,” Crowley insisted, grinning as Aziraphale continued to blush, “that’s your name forever now, and you won’t convince me otherwise. Aziraphale the angel. It suits you.”

“If you insist.”

“I do.” 

Aziraphale treated him to one last small smile. “Well, Crowley, I really must be going. Mister Shadwell will have my hide if I’m not back to assist with supper. Today has been wonderful, though. Thank you, truly.”

“You’re the one helping me with my reading,” Crowley answered him, a little awkwardly. He was still reeling a little. “Can we meet again tomorrow, by the way? You’ll have me reading Shakespeare by autumn if we keep up the pace we had today.”

Aziraphale seemed to hesitate. “It’s not that I don’t want to--I do, of course I do--but I can’t really...my time isn’t my own, you understand. I have duties that I have to see to.”

There was something suggestive in his voice, some lilt to it that Crowley interpreted as wanting him to do something, but it took him a few moments to parse the meaning of it. Finally, he got it.

“Oh! Don’t worry about that, I’ll take care of it. I’ll speak to Grace and get your schedule cleared.” 

Aziraphale’s face lit up like the sun. “Oh, thank you! I’ll be looking forward to it. I really must be running off now, though.” He bowed, a quick dip that was far less deep than tradition would otherwise dictate but that made Crowley glad to see after only a day of spending time together. 

“See you tomorrow, angel.”

Aziraphale stiffened in his bow, almost imperceptibly, then stood without much further ado and shuffled off down the hallway with a final nod to Crowley.

Crowley swallowed and watched him go, trying not to focus in on the plush offerings hidden mostly behind those butler-y coattails. He gave a deep exhale, then resolved to go and have a little chat with Grace. 

That task turned out far easier than he had been expecting; he found Grace in the royal chambers, replacing the linens on the mess of a bed Crowley had left behind that morning. She faltered slightly when he entered, as though she was unused to anyone else being in that space, but managed to muster up a curtsy.

“Welcome back, your Highness.”

“Oh, no, not you too!” Crowley groaned. “Listen, it’s just ‘Crowley.’ I get that you’ve got to keep up all that ‘your Highness’ nonsense when we’re in front of people, but it’s just--it’s weird.”

She actually quirked a bit of a smile at that, the first he had seen on her face thus far. “Did your servants back home call you ‘Crowley?’” 

“The servants back home called me ‘hey you’ most of the time.”

She barked a small laugh, which morphed immediately into a look of surprise. Crowley grinned at her and flopped down onto the nearest settee, reaching down to remove the shiny new boots that had already started to wear blisters into the side of his toes. He hissed in pain as he pressed at the sensitive skin there. 

“You need a valet.” Crowley levered his head up towards Grace, who was watching him with a slightly appraising air. 

“A valet?”

She nodded. “Like I am to Her High--to Iris. Someone to manage your affairs, keep your clothes cleaned and tidy, soak your feet. Not my job, by the way.”

“I have Tracy.”

Grace shook her head. “It’s traditional for them to be the same gender. Not considered appropriate for a woman to be a man’s personal servant, for obvious reasons.”

“A little ironic, considering you and Iris, don’t you think?”

Grace just shrugged. Crowley thought back to his earlier conversation with Aziraphale, to the reason he had come to find Grace to talk to in the first place.

“Do you know,” he said, thoughtfully, “I think I might know just the right person for the job.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look, this fic hasn't been abandoned! I've been really wrapped up in some events that have been going on, but I've started working on this again and I intend to finish it! Chapter updates should (hopefully) be coming out every Tuesday until it's finished!
> 
> If there's anything you would absolutely love to see happen in this story, please feel free to drop it in a comment! I can't make any promises, but at the very least it's useful info for me <3


	3. A Butler's Perspective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale ruminates on his blooming friendship with the Prince of the realm, and the complicated feelings it drags up for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very slight CWs for masturbation, mention of pregnancy.

Aziraphale made his way through the winding passageways and secret servants’ side tunnels after their chat as light as if he were walking on air. His conversations with Crowley over the day echoed back and forth in his head; Crowley telling him he wanted him as a friend, Crowley insisting he call him by his name, Crowley calling him angel. His breath hitched again at the thought of how that word had sounded on his tongue. And the look in Crowley’s eyes when Aziraphale had smiled up at him, that spark of want. Aziraphale may not have had much in the way of amorous opportunities as a butler in the Royal Palace, and one desirous of his own gender no less, but he thought he could recognize some level of infatuation when he saw it.

He knew in his heart of hearts that nothing could ever come of such an idle fantasy. Even if Crowley did desire him beyond friendship, there were far too many barriers between them. Crowley was married now, to the Queen of the Realm no less, and far above Aziraphale’s station. He was beyond beautiful, he was formally educated (albeit in another language), he had power and opportunity. Aziraphale had...

Well, at least he had the thought of those eyes to keep him warm at night, now. 

He dipped his head through a low passage and plodded down a flight of well-hidden stairs, emerging into the hustle and bustle of the main kitchen. Servants, cooks, scullery maids, butlers, and the various other persons that made the Palace tick moved about the great room, the organised chaos of supper time well in hand under the sharp eye of the head butler. Aziraphale avoided his gaze with a carefully downcast eye and skirted the outside of the chamber, making his way over to the entrance to the servants’ bed-chambers.

“Oy, Aziraphale! Over here, boy.” Aziraphale startled slightly at the sound of his name being called. Shadwell was hailing him from one of the little alcoves set back from the kitchen proper, tucked away so as not to get underfoot (and likely to avoid being called on for service, just as Aziraphale was attempting to do). With him was the new servant he had met the other day, the one who had come with Crowley. He shuffled over to them and tucked himself into the alcove as best as he could.

“Aziraphale, wasn’t it?” The woman asked, smiling kindly at him. 

He offered her a tentative smile back. “That’s right, madame. I’m terribly sorry, but I believe I’ve been terribly rude and forgotten your name.”

“Her name’s Tracy,” Shadwell said. His eyes narrowed in suspicion, which Aziraphale ignored; Shadwell was suspicious of everything. “How do you two already know each other?”

Tracy clucked her tongue at him lightly, which made Aziraphale wince. Rather than the outburst he had been expecting, however, Shadwell seemed to look almost embarrassed at having been so rude. Aziraphale turned wide eyes to her.

“We met when my young master and I first arrived,” she explained, smiling a little coyly at Shadwell’s sheepish expression. “There was a bit of an…incident, but I like to think we all grew closer as a result.” She winked at Aziraphale. He was suddenly reminded of the incident in question, the one where Crowley had come out of the bath dripping wet and with nothing between him and God but a bit of fur, and blushed terribly. He had been avoiding telling Shadwell about that.

Luckily, Shadwell didn’t seem inclined to follow up on her rather cryptic statement. He only grunted, turning his beady glare back to Aziraphale: “And where have you and that boy been all day, anyway? He came sniffing about in the wee hours and no-one’s seen you since.”

“Shadwell!” Aziraphale glanced over to Tracy, alarmed, “however you may feel about him, he’s still our Prince. You mustn’t call him that boy.” 

Shadwell rolled his eyes. “Alright, alright, you an’ your proper ways. What were you and His Royal Majesty, Duke of Brightwell, Consort to the Queen, and Prince of the Realm What’s-His-Bloody-Face up to all bloody day, then?”

Tracy laughed uproariously at this, drawing the curious glances of several other servants to their little corner. Aziraphale huffed. “If you must know, we were in the library. He asked me to teach him to read English a little better, since his education in the subject was mostly spoken.”

“Did he?” There was an odd twinkle in Tracy’s eye.

Shadwell grimaced. “Thas’ not your job. You were supposed to be helping me with those foreign blokes today.”

“I’m hardly in a position to refuse the direct request of a Prince,” Aziraphale reasoned. “Besides, I’m sure young Newton could use the practice.”

“He spilt pea soup all down some foreign lass’ fancy dress!”

“My point exactly.”

Shadwell growled, but seemed to realize he wasn’t going to get Aziraphale to concede fault there. He turned back to Tracy. “What do you think, then? You came with ‘im. Is the little lord as much of a spoiled brat as he looks?”

“Oh, yes.” Tracy’s voice was serene, her expression fond. “Perhaps not as much as you might be used to here, though. Even the King and Queen get their hands dirty occasionally up north. He’s harmless, the dear pet, if a bit naive.”

“He swaggers around like he’s better than everybody else.”

“But he doesn’t think he _is_ better than everybody else, which is the part that matters,” Aziraphale said, decisively. “He treated me as every bit an equal during our time together today. I won’t hear another bad word about him.” He put on his best steely glare to make it clear to Shadwell that he was quite serious. Tracy’s warm smile turned back to him, that odd little glint in her eye even more in evidence, but she said nothing. 

Shadwell opened his mouth, probably to argue the point more, but was interrupted.

“You there, Aziraphale!” he recognized the voice of the head butler behind him, and sighed. So much for his chances of sneaking some supper and hiding out in his quarters. He turned around.

“Yes, sir?”

The rather stern older man stared down at him. “We need an extra pair of hands at the Princesses’ table tonight. Go with Newt, and don’t forget the honey for Rose’s tea this time, hmm?”

Aziraphale bit back a rather acerbic reply to that (in the ten or so years he’d been old enough to serve at the royal tables, he had forgotten honey _one time_ and the head butler simply refused to let It go) and nodded, curtly, before spinning around He bid a quick goodbye to Tracy and an exasperated glance to Shadwell then went to find Newt. He found him by the little dumbwaiter and helped him load the laden cart onto it, then led him up the stairs. 

“Have you ever served the Princesses before?” He asked Newt as he pulled at the rope to bring the dumbwaiter up. 

Newt’s expression was nervous, but little could be divined from this considering that he always looked nervous. “N-no, I haven’t. I’ve only been helping out Shadwell so far.”

_God help you_ , Aziraphale thought, then felt bad about it. “Well, it’s really quite simple. We take the trolley in, we give each of them a plate and whatever beverage they ask for. They always want the same ones, but let them ask anyway. And let me make Rose’s tea. She’s quite particular about it.”

“O-okay.” He looked, if anything, even more nervous now. 

Aziraphale sighed. “Listen, just try to remain calm. Most of our time will be spent standing in a corner waiting for them to finish. It’s very likely they won’t even acknowledge our presence. Breathe, be professional. And Newt?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t make eye contact.”

Sure enough, when they opened the door to the dining chamber utilized by the Queen’s three sisters, not a one of them even glanced up at their entrance. Aziraphale took one end of the cart and guided it (and Newt) over to the table, silently placing a dish in front of each lady. He kept his expression perfectly neutral as he took and dispensed drink orders. Then, with a nod to Newt to show him where to go, he made his way over to a corner to wait for them to finish their meals. 

The three young women, twenty, sixteen, and ten, respectively, kept up a low chatter the entire time they ate. Their table manners were impeccable, of course; even the ten-year-old had been groomed her whole life to be a perfect representation of her royal heritage. Their topics ranged from politics to the language of flowers to favourite authors, and eventually turned towards the subject of marriage.

“I just hope that whoever I marry, he’s as handsome as the one Iris got,” said the sixteen-year-old, Petunia, with a sigh. Behind her, Aziraphale stiffened in his already stuffily professional position.

The oldest gave her an amused look. “You’ll marry whoever is chosen for you, just like the rest of us. But yes, he is rather handsome, isn’t he?”

“Mother used to say only barbarian men kept their hair long. Is he a barbarian?” Asked the youngest.

Petunia laughed. “No, Lilly, he’s not a barbarian. Or at least, we haven’t called those of his kingdom so in a very long while.”

“But his hair’s that weird colour,” Lilly insisted, belying her youth in the slight note of petulance carried in her tone.

Petunia groaned. “Rose, you talk to her.”

“He may have hair in a colour not often seen by us,” the oldest said diplomatically, “but political allies cannot be barbarians. They are, by definition, enemies of the kingdom only. Thus, Sir Crowley cannot be a barbarian.”

“You’re just saying that cause you want to smooch him.” 

“Lilly!” Rose gasped, “We do not speak that way! Especially not about our sister’s husband.”

Lilly looked like she wanted to argue, but the sharp looks from both of her sisters seemed to be enough to quell another outburst. She returned to her meal, grumbling. 

“Oh, I do so hope Iris gets with child soon, though,” Petunia sighed. Behind her, Aziraphale’s stomach twisted into knots. He wished desperately he were anywhere but there in that moment, anywhere but having to listen to this particular conversation. “I’d love to have a little niece or nephew to fawn over and spoil. And it would get the matchmakers off our back for a little while, at least.”

“Would you?” Rose asked, blissfully unaware of Aziraphale’s misery behind her. Her voice carried a slight hint of amusement. “The more children she has, the more stand between your own children and the crown, you know. If you were ambitious you’d wish her barren.”

Petunia seemed shocked. “I wouldn’t wish that on my own sister, ambitious or no! Besides, with such a handsome husband, she’d have to be barren not to get with child sooner rather than later. I’m only being practical.”

“What does him being handsome have to do with her having a baby?” Lilly asked, frowning.

There a sudden, uncomfortable tension in the room.

“Did you hear that foreign dignitary from Spain, Antheema or something, got soup spilt on her dress today? My lady-in-waiting told me about it this afternoon.” Rose said, a little desperately.

Newt looked suddenly even more nervous than before, but the conversation was moved swiftly and mercifully on. 

The princesses didn’t finish their meal and retire to their separate chambers for almost another hour, and by the time he and Newt had cleared the dishes Aziraphale was quite stiff in the spine and more than a little desperate for use of a chamberpot. They thoroughly cleared the dining chamber, Newt shooting him nervous little glances that told him his fouled mood was more obvious than he would have liked, and brought the emptied trolley back to leave with the scullery maids. 

Then, finally, Aziraphale was free to return to his quarters. His room was deep within the sprawling underground maze that made up the servants’ domain. It was small, little more than a narrow bed and a small table that he used as a desk, but it was as much a home as he had ever come close to having. He had collected some few personal effects over the years which he had scattered throughout the small chamber; a pen that Shadwell had bought him for his journal keeping, a pure-white feather from a dove, a rather sketchy portrait which was all he had left of his mother. He also had not a few books. They were stacked high on the rather spindly table next to his bed, immaculately kept despite their obvious wear, towering precariously. On one wall, a simple wooden cross was hung.

Aziraphale heaved a sigh and sat down on his bed, letting the stiffness of the day settle over him. His job required him to hold himself to an exacting standard at all times; though not royal himself, of course, he was a representative of the royal household and was expected to comport himself accordingly. The stiff-backed dignity was a source of pride for him, but it did also play merry hell with one’s spine. He stretched with both arms above his head. His spine clicked rather worryingly as he twisted it this way and that, enjoying the slight burn of it, feeling the fixed twinges he’d been carrying with him all day settle back down into a more comfortable alignment. 

When he was finally satisfied with the state of his corporeal form (or, he supposed, at least satisfied with his current experience of it), he shucked off his uniform and hung it carefully on the back of the door. He inspected it thoroughly for any stains, crumbs, or other imperfections that might besmirch his role as a butler in the Palace, only reaching for his nightgown when he had satisfied himself that no such defects existed. He stacked his pillows neatly into a configuration that would prop him up for reading at the ideal angle for reading. Then, and only then, did he crawl into bed.

Half an hour and only a few pages into one of his favourite old novels, however, Aziraphale was forced to concede that he was too preoccupied to read. His mind was still racing with all the events of the day. The time spent with Crowley had been such a pleasantly bright spot in the otherwise normal tedium of his everyday life, their easy conversations a balm to a wound he hadn’t been entirely aware existed. There was something about the man that was absolutely captivating to him, far beyond his slightly wild beauty, though Aziraphale found he was certainly not immune to that either. He had looked at Aziraphale as though he had actually seen him, as though he had understood. For someone that had seldom been looked at as anything other than a wretched orphan in need of scraps or a warm body to do whatever bidding they needed done, that kind of attention was…flattering? Intriguing? Terrifying? Perhaps some combination of all three?

He thought back to the Princesses’ conversation over supper. They had called Crowley handsome, which was true, but they had missed that he was also kind, and gentle. That he had a fierceness about him, a dry wit, a distaste for facade or illusion. They had overlooked the charming twinkle in his hauntingly amber eyes when he laughed, the delicate taper of his pianist’s fingers and how they looked curled loosely about the spine of a book, how those same fingers would look tracing over a forearm, a thigh...

He scrubbed his palms over his face for a few moments in a fruitless effort to distract himself from thoughts of Crowley. He was being ridiculous; he had just met him, and for all he really knew, the man wanted something from him and would turn sour the moment he got it. Just like— _no_. Sighing, he leaned over and blew out the candle on his bedside table. He squirmed until he found a position on the thin mattress that was moderately comfortable and tried to get his mind to quiet itself so he could get to sleep.

Again, however, his mind slipped back to thoughts of his new Prince. In the dark, the image of their first meeting swam up before his eyes, of that pale, slim figure, still warm and dripping slightly from his bath. Of those wide, surprised eyes. 

Aziraphale bit his lip as the vision in his mind’s eye diverged from his actual memory of the event. In his fantasy, it was only him and Crowley in that guest-chamber, just the two of them alone, no Tracy to intrude or intervene. That Crowley looked at him with those expressive eyes of his burning right through Aziraphale, a teasing smile playing around his lips. Little droplets of water climbed steadily down his bare chest and legs, leaving behind wet trails that Aziraphale desperately wanted to follow with his tongue. Crowley’s teasing look widened into a full-blown smirk. The fur he had been holding up to his most private areas dropped to the floor.

Aziraphale, lying in his bed in the dark, whimpered in defeat. He let his hand sneak under his bed covers, clawing at his nightgown until he could reach beneath the hem to grasp at where he was firm and needy. He rolled his body away from the cross that hung on the wall, curling in on himself as if to hide what he was doing from its judgement. In his fantasy, the version of himself that would say and do things the real him would never be brave enough to do stepped forward. 

\-------------------------

The next morning found him back in the library with Crowley, returned to that small pocket of paradise that had made the previous day so delightful. Some anxious part of himself had been worried that Crowley would somehow know of his nighttime indiscretion; that the sin would stain him in some way, soil him until others could recognize him for what he was. Until Crowley could recognize him as someone who would defile themselves in such a manner to the thought of their master, of their friend… Which hadn’t happened, of course. Word had been handed down at breakfast (to the twin scowls of both Shadwell and the head butler) that he was to attend to Crowley again today, and the Prince had greeted him with the same wide grin he had bestowed on him yesterday.

Aziraphale’s heart had fluttered helplessly in his chest, but he had smiled back all the same.

Now, they were in the middle of one of Crowley’s “lessons,” which really just amounted to Aziraphale listening to Crowley read to him in that enchanting accent of his (albeit a little more slowly and haltingly than Aziraphale was used to with his own readings). He had just made it through the third chapter in the story when he halted, slipped a bookmark between the pages, and looked over to where Aziraphale sat.

“Is something wrong, Crowley?”

Crowley shifted, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “Not—not wrong, no. But a little bit, er, weird, I guess?”

Aziraphale’s brow wrinkled in concern. “What is it?”

“Well, er, as it turns out, I’m supposed to choose a valet. A personal butler kind of thing. Live-in. I brought Tracy with me, but they said I can’t ask her to do it.”

“It’s traditional they be the same gender,” Aziraphale confirmed, his heart sinking. Oh, this was going to be it, wasn’t it? He’d have someone from the higher-ranking servants’ contingent who’d get to be around him all the time, who would be there to teach him to read English and be his friend, and he wouldn’t need Aziraphale anymore. How had he been so stupid to think that something this wonderful would stay in his life for any length of time? He’d been such a fool. “Well, I very much wish you luck. There are plenty of very fine young men in Her Majesty’s service that would be more than honoured to serve you, Sire.” The words stuck in his throat.

Crowley was looking at him like he had grown a second head. “Again with the ‘sire’ business? And no, Aziraphale, I wasn’t… _notifying_ you, I was—oh, bugger. Aziraphale, _would you like to be my valet_?”

Aziraphale blinked, then blinked again. There was no hint of a joke about Crowley’s eyes, no tease in the curl of his lips. He was serious.

“That’s—really?” Was all he could think of to say. 

“Yeah, really.” Crowley looked vaguely embarrassed. “I mean, only if you want. But like I said, Aziraphale, you’re about the only person in this whole place I’ve actually liked. Besides, I’d like to…well, I think you’d be a good fit for me. The job! A good fit for the job.” He bit himself off, pink-cheeked.

Aziraphale was reeling. He found himself very glad that he was still sitting in one of the library’s overstuffed armchairs, because otherwise he would have felt an extremely powerful need to sit down. “I’d need to…bring all my things out of my quarters. Tell Shadwell, and all that.”

“Take all the time you need.” Crowley peered at him rather dubiously. “I do mean it, though, Aziraphale, it’s only if you want it. I don’t want you to feel like you have to just because I’m ‘ _The Prince_.’” He spoke his own title with not a small amount of distaste.

“I do want to!” Aziraphale said, honestly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to give you the impression that it’s not something I want. It’s a wonderful opportunity, it’s just…”

“’Just?’” 

“It’s just that I’ve lived in the servants’ quarters my whole life. If I was very, very lucky, I might one day have ended up as the head butler. This is far beyond anything I ever thought possible. I never thought I would be a valet to the Prince. It’s a lot to take in.”

Crowley smiled at him, softly. “I understand. Listen, why don’t you take tonight and think about it? There are a few things that I need to…well, we’ll need to talk before you move your things in anyway. Meet me in the morning and let me know what you decide?”

“Oh, thank you, Crowley. This really does mean a lot to me, you know.”

“Yeah, angel. Me too.” His eyes were soft, his smile gentle, and Aziraphale had to look away before he forgot himself entirely. 

He cleared his throat. “So, er, does that mean we’ve finished with our lesson already?”

“No!” Crowley scrambled to grab at the book he had abandoned, flipping the pages until he reached the place they had left off. “No, angel, definitely not. I have to know what’s going to happen with these sailors, after all. I’d be utterly bereft if I didn’t.” 

“As would I, my dear,” Aziraphale said with a smile. “As would I.”


	4. The best laid plans...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley tries to have a very important conversation with Aziraphale.
> 
> It doesn't exactly go to plan...

An afternoon in the library turned into the better part of the day spent together with Aziraphale. He had sent word down to the head butler that he would be in need of Aziraphale’s service for an unspecified amount of time, so neither of them felt the ticking of the clock hanging over their head as they had the previous day. Once hanging about indoors had grown tiresome for them, Crowley had suggested they grab a few tidbits from the kitchen and walk the grounds—he’d been awfully cooped up since he’d arrived, and Aziraphale’s pale skin made him look as though he had never even seen the sun.

So, they walked around the edge of the pristinely kept lawns and gardens of the Palace. They stayed within the perimeter patrolled by the guards so as not to cause an incident, but that left them with a more than ample amount of room to wander. They ate the fruits and bread and cheeses Aziraphale had managed to acquire (utilizing a ‘royal decree,’ presumably) in the extensive rose garden near the front gate, and chatted pleasantly to one another.

Crowley spent much of their conversation trying to find a good time to bring up the obvious—as Crowley’s personal valet, he would be moving into the servants’ quarters attached to the royal chambers. Grace had assured him that there was a second room for him, so he wouldn’t be bunking along with her, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t bound to notice that the Queen was sleeping in that separate chamber and not in the bed with her husband. It was the sort of thing a person paid attention to.

And it wasn’t that Crowley didn’t trust Aziraphale, or that he feared he might tell someone. Anyone with eyes and a working brain could tell that Aziraphale was of a similar persuasion to Crowley’s. He doubted that he would have any problem with it, especially since Brittany seemed to have somewhat of a more relaxed attitude towards the whole thing than his own kingdom, with the possible exception of its royals.

No, it was just that it was, well, awkward. How did you just tell the person you were asking to be your personal attendant “Hey, by the way, my marriage is actually a sham because we both fancy our own gender and now I want you to move in with us?” Being so attracted to the boy made it even worse. He certainly didn’t want Aziraphale to think that he was trying to coerce him into a similar relationship to the one that Iris and Grace had. He genuinely _liked_ Aziraphale, wanted to be his friend as much as…well, other things. And from the boy’s fastidious nature and the solid personality he hid behind that professional veneer, he actually thought he might make a damn fine butler. One who could keep up with the absolute nightmare Crowley knew he could occasionally be.

All of which was why, by the time he finally slipped back into the royal chambers, he still hadn’t managed to tell him. It was late enough that Iris was actually there. According to Grace, her duties were likely to keep her occupied well into the evening most days, at least until she had established a Council of Advisers she felt she could trust.

“Right now I don’t trust a single one of those slimy bastards as far as I can throw them,” she complained, sipping from the wine Grace had brought her before sitting next to her by the fire. 

Crowley thought back to the advisers he had spoken with the previous morning and grimaced. “Can’t say I blame you.”

“I don’t understand why my parents allowed any of them to stick around.”

Grace smiled at her, nursing her own wine. “Because they hardly used them. Your parents kept an iron grip around all the affairs of the Palace, and had little need for them. And say what you will about their personal affectations, they do at least have some expertise in their particular areas.”

Iris sighed. “I suppose you’re right. I can’t just get rid of them, or all of them at least. But I also can’t leave the kingdom in their hands so I can step back and relax.”

“Is that what you want?” Crowley asked, curiously. He still hadn’t had much opportunity to speak to Iris, or to Grace despite their brief conversation the previous evening, and was interested to know what sort of ruler she would be.

Iris seemed to consider this, staring into the fire for a few moments. “I have a duty to my kingdom and its people to be the most effective and compassionate Queen I can be,” she started, slowly, “But I saw what my parents’ approach did to them as people. They threw all of themselves into serving their people and ran themselves ragged doing it. I barely saw them as a child, barely knew them even as the Princess Expectant. And in the end, it’s what killed them. They should never have been on that ship.”

Grace reached over and slipped her fingers through Iris’, squeezing a comforting grip. Iris smiled back at her reassuringly. “I won’t step back from my duties, but I won’t sacrifice my entire life to it either. I am my own self as much as I am my Kingdom. I don’t want to miss out on that part of me either.” She looked at Grace again, a certain look in her eyes that made Crowley look away. It wasn’t a look meant for him.

A few moments passed while Crowley left them to gaze into each other’s eyes in peace, but Iris did eventually remember that he was there. 

“Grace told me you’ve chosen a valet. Tell me about him.” There was a hint of her royal expectation for her demands to be followed carried in her voice, along with more than a little bit of teasing. 

Crowley tried not to blush, and failed. He hoped that the meagre firelight would cover up the evidence on his skin. “He’s—er—he’s no-one, really. He was one of the first people I met when I got here.”

Her eyes were far too knowing for her own good. Or, more likely, Crowley’s. “I see. And you just…imprinted on him, like a baby duckling?”

“N-no! No, he just seemed like he’d be good at his job.”

“He’s been teaching Crowley how to read English,” Grace said, the tease more than obvious in her tone. “All day. For two days.”

Iris turned back to him, cocking a curious eyebrow. “Did you not know how to read English?”

“Well…” Crowley mumbled, knowing the heat in his cheeks must be more than obvious by now, “Not well. I mean, not so well that I can’t get better. Lots of reading in my new job, you know.”

The women exchanged a knowing glance, then broke out in giggles that made him scowl.

“Oh, come now,” Iris said, “It’s alright. If you think he’s…suitable for the position, I trust you. Have you told him what he’s walking into yet?”

Crowley sighed. “Not yet, no. Haven’t figured out how to bring it up without sounding like a loon.”

“It is a bit of a thing to spring on someone,” Grace admitted. She turned back to Iris. “Do you remember when you first started flirting with me? I thought I was about to lose my head!”

They laughed, and Crowley settled back to watch them. It was nice to see them both so comfortable, so relaxed and at ease with one another, especially considering how buttoned-up they had to be in their everyday lives. It gave him a bit of hope that there was some amount of happiness to be found in this whole mess of a situation, if he was careful. 

His mind drifted back to blue eyes and sunlight smiles as he listened to the two women reminisce, and for the first time, he thought he might just come to like it here. 

\------------------------------

The next morning, Crowley was awoken by the familiar voice of Tracy telling him it was time to get out of bed. He groaned and rolled over, mumbling something about wanting a few more minutes that may or may not have been actually coherent, but stiffened at her next words.

“Now, now, lovey, you wouldn’t want to scare young mister Aziraphale off his new job, would you?” 

Crowley scrambled to turn over under the giant pile of covers. Sure enough, Aziraphale was standing right next to Tracy, looking slightly nervous and more than a little amused by Crowley’s disorientation.

“Buh,” Crowley said, intelligently.

Tracy’s eyes were sparkling with mirth. “Aziraphale here brought up your breakfast cart and I thought I should show him the ropes on how to care for our pampered little Prince in the morning. I do hope that was alright.”

“You are a menace,” he said, with feeling, but Tracy only laughed. 

It was distinctly odd to have Aziraphale in his space like this. The royal chambers weren’t nearly as much of a home for him as his bedroom growing up had been, but it still felt like a refuge away from the prying eyes of the world. Grace and Tracy had been the only servants allowed within its walls (at least as far as Crowley could tell), for their comfort and privacy, and having Aziraphale here felt…intimate. Especially seeing as Crowley was still in his sleeping things. He supposed he was going to have to get used to it, considering that Aziraphale would be taking over as his personal valet.

A thought occurred to him then. “Tracy, what’re you going to do now? You’re not going to be…demoted, or whatever, are you? ‘Cause I could talk to them about it.”

She smiled at him. Next to her, Aziraphale’s face took on a curious expression Crowley couldn’t quite identify. “Don’t you worry about that,” she said, “I’ll be just fine. Grace has asked that I continue helping out here, actually. Apparently the old King and Queen had a whole fleet of servants dedicated to them and it’s been just her with Iris, poor pet. I’ll be staying with the others in the chambers downstairs, but you’ll still be seeing quite a bit of me.”

“Oh.” The little blossom of fear that had been growing in Crowley’s chest deflated. Tracy may be a menace and a pain in his arse, but she was as much a mother to him as the one who had given birth to him. He wouldn’t want her to suffer for him and his new position. “That’s good.” 

Another smile, softer this time. “Now come on, love, time to get up. Your lady wife is already in the other room and eating without you.”

Crowley stared at her for a moment. “Er, right.” He climbed out of the all-consuming monster that was the royal bed while Tracy showed Aziraphale his wardrobe, feeling decidedly awkward about the whole business. His nightclothes were exchanged for a rather more casual (though still exquisite) outfit. Tracy and Aziraphale were faced away from him as he changed, but Crowley still felt hyper-aware of Aziraphale’s presence, just being in the same room with him while so unclothed making him feel hot and prickly in a way that Tracy’s presence never had. Finally, he managed to do up all the fiddly buttons and ties that seemed to be in vogue for men’s fashion here and went to gather up his wayward servants.

He found them giggling conspiratorially near the fire, Aziraphale’s cheeks flushed slightly pink, and Crowley scowled at Tracy. “You’re not telling him lies about me, are you?”

“I would never tell a lie to young mister Aziraphale,” Tracy scoffed. 

The patent untruth inherent in that statement made Crowley roll his eyes. “And I’m the Queen of Sheba. What _were_ you telling him, then?”

“She was telling me a story from your youth,” Aziraphale admitted to him, “There was a rather unfortunate incident involving a horse?” He still seemed a little nervous, but his eyes were twinkling with a mischief that was becoming increasingly familiar.

Crowley groaned, leaning into the dramatics of it, trying to put him at ease. “You can’t believe a single word this woman says, Aziraphale. I did _not_ fall off that horse, I was _pushed_ , thank you. One of my older brothers having some ‘fun.’ And the pile I landed in was hay, not…anything else.”

“He still doesn’t like horses,” Tracy stage-whispered to Aziraphale. “Too many bad memories.” 

“Lies! Lies and slander!” Crowley shouted, grinning, as though this were the most egregious offence that had ever been levelled against him. “I’ll show you! I’ll take you out to the stables later, Aziraphale, and we’ll go for a ride. So you can see how _comfortable_ and _competent_ around horses I am, unlike _some_ people would have you believe.” He hid his barely-contained laughter behind an over-the-top scowl he levelled at Tracy, though her unrepentant grin told him she felt not an ounce of shame over her tall tales.

“Oh!” Aziraphale was flushed and smiling along with them, charming little wrinkles in the corners of his eyes as he looked back and forth between Crowley and Tracy. “That sounds absolutely lovely, my d—Crowley, but I can’t actually ride horses. You’ll have to show me your horsemanship, which I’m sure is _terribly_ impressive and brave, with me on the ground.”

“What, really? You don’t ride?”

“Never learned, I’m afraid. Not the sort of skill a Palace butler is expected to have.”

Crowley looked vaguely affronted. “Well, my butler certainly is. I’ll teach you.”

“Oh, you don’t need to do that! I’m sure I can ask one of the stable hands to teach me if—”

“I wouldn’t bother arguing with him, dearie.” Tracy said as Crowley opened his mouth in obvious argument, “Once he’s put his mind to something he’s stubborn as a mule about it. Best to just let him.”

Crowley scowled at her again, but couldn’t really argue without proving the point. He turned back to Aziraphale. “Seriously, it wouldn’t be any trouble. It’s not like I don’t have the time. Besides, you’re teaching me how to read, so.”

“Well,” Aziraphale’s reluctance seemed to be cracking under the strain of Crowley’s vaguely pleading eyes. “If you’re sure, then I suppose…yes, I would like that.”

Crowley beamed at him. “Excellent! We can go after breakfast.”

\------------------------------

Later, once the still rather awkward affair that was breakfast was done (Aziraphale had been stilted and awkward around Iris. She seemed to have recognized him as someone who once served herself and her sisters, but not known his name, which she had been vaguely embarrassed about. Compounded with the fact that they were all acutely aware that Aziraphale still wasn’t fully briefed on the whole situation, no-one had really enjoyed themselves overly much.), Crowley followed Aziraphale through the maze of passageways he was still hopelessly lost within and out towards the stables.

Aziraphale was still wringing his hands as they stepped out a pair of side doors and into the bright sunshine. “I feel like an utter fool, I really do. I served her as a princess for years, but now that she’s the _Queen_ I get all flustered. I really thought I was beyond all that.”

“It’s fine, Aziraphale, relax.” 

“I didn’t even remember she prefers the strawberry jam with her scones! Some butler I am. If Miss Grace hadn’t been there to rescue me I’d have been hung up to dry.”

“She’s not like that and you know it, angel. If you’d have served her the marmalade she would have asked for strawberry and the world would not, in fact, have stopped spinning.”

Aziraphale harrumphed, but said nothing. Crowley accepted that as about as good as he was likely to get and kept walking across the lawn until the reached the stables. Crowley had been here with his family in the whirlwind of those first few days after his arrival, but hadn’t had the opportunity to come actually utilize it. The place was palatial in its own right; long and open, it housed what must have been nearly a hundred beasts. Separated sections appeared to divide them into those used to drive coaches, those used for servants and messengers, and those utilized by the upper crust. Crowley waved over the stable master, who bowed deeply at him and cast a curious glance at Aziraphale, and asked for a pair of horses for them. They walked away from the stables with a couple of well-behaved old mares, the kind used to teach children and ride in slow-moving parades. 

“Right,” Crowley said, stopping them a little way away. “Do you know how to get on?”

Aziraphale looked alarmed. “Getting on? Already? Don’t you need to teach me all the…parts, or whatever, first?”

“Oh, right. Er, saddle,” Crowley pointed at the big leather saddle, “reigns, stirrups. Horse.”

“Yes, I think I could have probably figured out that much,” Aziraphale said, acerbically. 

“Look, there’s really not much I can teach you from ground level. It’s all about how it feels. These old biddies’ll keep you safe no matter what you do, and I’ll be right here the whole time. Promise.”

Aziraphale turned back to his nag, who was sniffing idly at the ground in hopes of a bit of grass to munch on. “Well…alright. How do I get on, then?”

“You’re going to want to grab the saddle, then get one foot in the stirrup and use your grip to swing yourself over.”

“Which part do I grab?” 

“There’s a little—oh here, let me just—.” Crowley stepped close and grasped Aziraphale’s left wrist and guided it up to grab at the appropriate handhold on the saddle, then froze. He was pressed right up against Aziraphale’s side, their fingers practically entwining on the saddle. Aziraphale’s fingers were warm, soft and well-cared for, without any of the callouses that Crowley had acquired from working in the castle gardens and playing his lute, and they twitched slightly under Crowley’s own. His breath was coming in short bursts that echoed in Crowley’s ears. It spilt from lips which had parted slightly at Crowley’s boldness, pink and perfect and dangerously tempting.

They stood frozen like that for a few heart-pounding moments. Finally Crowley managed to get his thoughts, which had all scattered to the four winds apart from those dedicated to the parts of himself that were touching Aziraphale at that moment, back into some sort of working order.

“Ngk,” he said. “Y-yeah. Handle. On the saddle, right. Good. Er, here.” He drew his fingers away from Aziraphale’s with some reluctance. “You’re going to want to put your left foot through here.” Rather than just pointing, like a sane person, whatever part of himself that seemed to be in charge right then reached down and lifted Aziraphale’s delicately booted ankle from the stone. Aziraphale still seemed frozen to the spot, and he swayed slightly when Crowley lifted his ankle, but he allowed it to be lifted into the stirrup without comment.

“And now you’re just going to sort of…swing yourself over.” Crowley made a swinging motion with his arms as if to illustrate.

Aziraphale looked at his foot in the stirrup as if looking at an utterly alien and unfamiliar thing. He looked up at the top of the saddle, then over to Crowley. “Would you…help me?” His voice was quiet, and there was the hint of a blush climbing its way up his pale cheeks. 

“’Course,” Crowley said, swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat. He stepped forward again, pressing himself so close along Aziraphale’s back he could see the pale hairs at the base of his neck rustle when Crowley breathed. With slow, careful movements, not wanting to scare Aziraphale off in case he was misinterpreting that look in his eye, he brought Aziraphale’s remaining hand up until it was grasping at the other side of the saddle. “Pull with this,” he said, hoarsely. Then, he settled his hands on Aziraphale’s plush hips. “Ready?”

Aziraphale nodded, panting slightly. Crowley felt the flex of muscle beneath his hands and he squeezed, helping Aziraphale shift his weight up until he could swing his leg over the back of the saddle. He got an absolutely _fantastic_ glimpse of that ample arse as it lifted up and over in his view, but it disappeared quickly as Aziraphale successfully seated himself atop the horse. 

“I did it!” Aziraphale’s grin was beatific, and it shone down on Crowley like the sun. “That wasn’t too bad at all.”

Crowley, who was still reeling, barely managed a weak, “Er—yeah. Good job!” He squeezed at Aziraphale’s ankle in what he hoped was a congratulatory gesture rather than a desperate bid for sanity before turning to swing up onto his own horse, taking some comfort in the solid warmth below him. He gathered the reins of his own horse as well as Aziraphale’s, bringing the two beasts close enough that they could speak freely. “Alright. We’re going to walk together for a bit to let you get a hang of it. Pay attention to how you move when she moves, how your muscles tense up. That’ll be the way you direct her when I give the reigns back to you later.” 

Aziraphale looked concerned again after the initial elation of getting on successfully, but nodded. Crowley urged his own horse to start moving forward at a sedate pace and Aziraphale’s followed along, lurching into motion. Aziraphale let out a cry and threw out a hand to grip at Crowley’s forearm desperately, looking like he was going to fall off already, despite the extremely slow plodding of the hoofs beneath him. Huffing a little laugh, Crowley brought the horses even closer together so he could wind Aziraphale’s clutching arm through his own like a gentleman might escort a lady. Aziraphale cast him a grateful glance.

“Is it always quite so—uneven?”

“Yup,” Crowley confirmed happily, to Aziraphale’s answering scowl. “You get used to it, though.”

“I highly doubt that,” Aziraphale muttered.

He did eventually seem to grow more comfortable with the gentle rocking motion of the horses, though he kept his arm looped adamantly through Crowley’s for the whole ride. The Palace grounds didn’t have the kind of woods and riding trails Crowley had ridden with his family, nowhere to hunt for game or spectacularly beautiful natural sights to see, but it did have wide, even lawns with small copses of trees that he could steer the horses around while keeping Aziraphale relatively comfortable in his saddle. They meandered along trails and across grassy swaths, enjoying the gatherings of ducks in the ponds and peacocks on the lawns. 

“Did you ride much, with your family?” Aziraphale asked. 

Crowley cast him a curious glance; Aziraphale hadn’t asked much about his life before the Palace, yet, always seeming to prefer keeping to the present. Perhaps it had been more out of politeness than a general aversion, as he’d thought. “Yes and no. We would take the hawks and go hunting in the winter and the early spring when the crops were scarce, which I enjoyed, though fun wasn’t really the point. In the summer I mostly rode with my sister, Astrid.”

“Were you close?”

A small smile flickered across Crowley’s face as he thought about his sister. “Very. We were absolutely inseparable when we were children, except when I insisted on getting into mischief. She was too good for that.”

“And as an adult?” 

“Oh, we’re still close—were still close, I suppose—but it’s different, being all grown up. We had to go off to our tutors and our duties and all that stupid adult stuff. We’d sit together at night, sometimes. Or go riding.”

“It sounds nice.” Aziraphale’s eyes were warm, his expression wonderfully soft.

“It was, while it lasted.” He swallowed, and looked at Aziraphale out of the corner of his eye. “Do you mind me asking how you came to work at the Palace? You said you were young, but…”

He was grateful that Aziraphale didn’t tense up or grow angry at this invasive line of questioning, though his smile turned a little sad. 

“I don’t know much about how I came to be here, to be honest,” he said, picking idly at the leather of the saddle with a fingernail rather than looking at Crowley’s face, “Shadwell tells me I was left at the staff entrance as an infant, tucked into a basket. There was no note. Only a blanket with my name embroidered in a corner.”

Crowley’s heart broke a little in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it.

“It’s alright. Of all the places I could have ended up, the Palace is one of the best. A roof over my head, three warm meals a day, a good, well-paying job. The royal family took me in when many people would have sent me away, and for that, I will be forever grateful. There are much worse fates for people like me.”

Crowley didn’t have anything to say to that. They rode a little way in a silence that was heavy but not uncomfortable, each lost in their own thoughts. Crowley steered them towards a particularly shady tree-lined pathway, and willow branches swaying in the gentle breeze lent a delicate susurration to the background that was exceptionally calming. 

He suddenly remembered the conversation they still desperately needed to have. “Er, listen, Aziraphale, there’s something…there’s something I should probably tell you.”

Aziraphale cast him a surprised, curious glance. “What is it?”

“It’s—well, it’s a little bit—oh, I’m rubbish at this.” He exhaled, trying to gather his thoughts. “Iris and I, our marriage was arranged by our parents. A lot longer ago than I knew about, actually. And it’s important. ‘Instrumental to the unity of our two nations’ or some rot like that. But it’s not—I mean it’s not—”

“It’s alright, Crowley.” Aziraphale’s voice was quiet, his gaze downcast. “It’s alright, I already know.”

Crowley stared at him. “You do?”

“Yes. Of course your marriage is important. I wouldn’t—I would never dare get in the way of that. She’s my Queen, and you’re my friend. And I’m no-one.” His voice broke a little, and Crowley noticed that his hands were twisting in his lap. Silent tears were streaking down his cheeks.

“Wait, what? That’s not what I—”

“Thank you for the ride today, Crowley, but I think I need to…I’m sure there are some duties I need to attend to somewhere.” He turned and made to slip off the side of his horse, away from Crowley. 

“Angel, wait!” Crowley grabbed at his wrist desperately, stilling him for a moment. 

If he had been a smarter man, he would have just explained everything right then and there. He would have told Aziraphale the truth, the whole truth, and let him decide what he wanted to do on his own. He would have made Aziraphale feel safe and in control.

Instead, because he was panicking, he kissed him. 

Aziraphale went rigid against him as Crowley brought their lips together, tasting the faint salt of the tears that had been spilling over Aziraphale’s cheeks a few moments before. A few heartbeats passed where they were both still, Crowley shocked with his own reckless action, before Aziraphale drew back.

His shining blue eyes met Crowley’s and they were wide, wild, full of a swirling jumble of both hope and hurt. “I have to go,” he said, and turned back to slip off his horse. Crowley didn’t move to stop him as Aziraphale moved off on wobbly legs, over to a small copse of trees. He watched his retreating form for a few minutes, cursing his own lack of self-control, then turned the horses back to the stables and towards home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I know nothing about horses, whoops)


	5. Patching it Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley and Aziraphale finally have the conversation they've been needing to have, with a little help from the women in their lives.

It took Aziraphale almost an hour to stop crying.

Crowley’s stammered rejection had been bad enough—he had tried to be so kind about it, too, had tried to make Aziraphale understand why their relationship could never be more than what it was, had been so gentle and understanding. Aziraphale had known it would come eventually. He had known they were doomed from the start, that the little blooming flower in his chest was destined never to see the light of day. 

But oh, what he would have given to have held onto that glimmer of hope just a while longer. There had been the beautiful moment when Crowley had been helping him up onto the horse. Crowley’s warm hands had lingered on his wrist, his hips, had been so achingly gentle as they had guided Aziraphale into the saddle. Aziraphale could still feel little ghosts of sensation where his touch had been, could still hear the ragged rhythm of Crowley’s breath so close to his ear. It had been so perfect. So warm. 

Aziraphale wasn’t proud of the thoughts those delicate and deferential touches had incited in him. The heat in his belly and the hope in his heart, which had seemed so beautiful at the time, felt like shards of ice within him now. Expecting the inevitable and having it actually happen were two different things, and to have what might have been ripped away from him so painfully was nothing short of torture.

Perhaps it was a blessing. He’d known Crowley a little more than a week, for God’s sake, and already the man held such power over his heart. Perhaps the fact that he had been let down early would preserve him from just more pain down the line.

Aziraphale ruminated on this under the shade of the willow tree whose trunk he had sunk down against. It was for the best, he decided after the worst of his crying had died down, though perhaps that was only his now-hollow heart speaking. 

It was the kiss he just couldn’t understand. It had felt real—Crowley’s desperation, his honesty, had been plainly in evidence in the press of his lips, the tight curl of his fingers on Aziraphale’s arm. It hadn’t been meant to rub salt into the wound, at least. Despite it all, Aziraphale couldn’t believe that Crowley was one of those types of men.

But then, what had it been? A show of regret on Crowley’s part? A moment of overwhelming passion, too strong to deny? Had it been selfish or giving, demonstrative or done in the heat of the moment? He replayed the kiss over and over in his mind but couldn’t come up with an answer that quite satisfied him.

He supposed that in the end, it didn’t really matter. He didn’t think that Crowley would rescind his offer to make Aziraphale his valet over his rather dramatic reaction, assuming he could get himself together and not make a scene. Most likely he’d want to pretend the whole thing had never happened and go back to the way things were before. Aziraphale would have to bury his hurt deep down with all the others he’d endured over his admittedly few years and carry on. He could still be Crowley’s friend, his servant, could keep the Prince in his life. It would simply be from a distance. Look, but don’t touch, and it would be enough. It would have to be enough.

He tried to tell that to the place where his heart had once been as he dusted himself off and made his way on unsteady feet back to the Palace. 

He avoided the servants’ quarters for a while; if the head butler spotted him sneaking back alone he’d figure out that he wasn’t on his valet duties and might try to put him to work, which was an argument he just didn’t have the capacity to have right then. Instead he slipped quietly through the hallways towards the familiar hush of the library. He let himself in with his key, listening to make sure no-one was inside that would take offense to a servant entering the Royal Library alone, grabbed a novel almost at random from a shelf, and found a nice, tucked-away corner in which to ensconce himself until he felt able to face the real world again.

He stayed there for several hours. The words on the page seemed almost meaningless and he struggled to make his mind latch onto them, making his way through the book at a much reduced pace from the way he normally inhaled the written word. He found that every character, no matter their description, had fiery red curls, or beautiful amber eyes, or a teasing glint in their eye. Aziraphale did his absolute best to focus on the words as they were and not on his troubled thoughts. He was only marginally successful, but by the time his angrily rumbling stomach drew him back into reality he at least felt calmer than he had been a few hours ago.

It was somewhat past supper time by the time he made his way down the narrow servants’ staircase into the kitchen. The head butler was nowhere to be seen, much to Aziraphale’s great relief, the great kitchen filled mostly with scullery maids going about the business of washing up.

Tracy was also there, busying herself over a small pot on one of the massive stoves. She spotted him before he realized she was there and she summoned him to her, beckoning him closer with a curl of her many-ringed fingers.

“Young Mister Aziraphale! I had wondered where you’d gotten off to.” Her sharp eyes took in his rumpled and probably dirt-stained clothes, the red rings around his eyes. “The Prince has been in a right state all afternoon, and he won’t tell me what’s happened. Is everything alright?”

Aziraphale thought about lying for a solid few moments. Crowley hadn’t told her what had happened, after all, and Aziraphale wasn’t sure he should be the one who should spill their combined secrets. But then again, who else could he turn to for advice, for comfort? And Tracy had been so kind to him as well…

“It’s not alright, but it will be. I had a…necessary conversation with Crowley on the grounds this morning that I think was a bit upsetting for the both of us.” A little pit of bubbling despair opened up in his belly again at the thought of it, but he swallowed the feeling down as best he could. 

Tracy frowned a bit. “I thought you two were—well, you seemed to be getting on well enough. What kind of a conversation was this?”

Aziraphale told her. He told her everything they had done, everything they had said, not caring that the scullery maids on the other side of the kitchen shot him strange looks as he started to cry again, the feeling of it still raw in his chest. Tracy wrapped him up in her arms as he hiccuped his way through the story. She let him finish without commenting beyond the occasional encouraging noise and let him cry it out on her shoulder, not seeming to notice the way his tears soaked into the soft fabric of his uniform.

“Oh, poor pet,” she crooned at him when his tears finally seemed to dry up again, utterly boneless against her. “No wonder you’re both upset. My young master, he means well, but he doesn’t always get his point across like he means to, hmm?”

Aziraphale sniffled again, and frowned into the cotton his face was still pressed up against. “He didn’t mean to hurt me. I should have known better than to think—he was doing me a kindness. Having your valet follow around after you like a lovesick puppy can’t be appealing.” 

Tracy actually pinched him in the arm at that, making him give a quick shout and jerk away from her. “Now don’t go on like that with me, young man. I know you’re not half so unaware as most of the people ‘round here; you know our Crowley adores you. You’re no-one’s puppy.”

“He has a certain fondness for me,” Aziraphale admitted, rubbing his arm, “but that doesn’t mean anything. He’s the Prince and I’m just a lowly butler. He was just trying to make sure things didn’t get more awkward than they already are. Which is—it’s good, it’s for the best, I just—it still hurts.” 

Tracy’s eyes were piercing into him now, expression a mixture of contemplation and pity. “I think you should speak with him. I know my young master, and he’ll be no good to anyone until he’s got this all sorted out.”

“I imagine I’ll see him in the morning.” Aziraphale’s heart twisted at the thought, and he grimaced a bit. 

“No. Tonight.” Her serious, insistent tone caught him by surprise.

“Why?”

She hesitated, seeming to weigh her words carefully before speaking them: “There are…certain things you should know, Aziraphale. I think the Prince was trying to tell you, in his own rather ineffectual way.”

“What things?”

She shook her head. “It’s not my place to say, love.” She turned back to the small pot she’d been watching over on the stove, ladled some of the mixture within into a teapot wrapped in a cozy to keep it warm, and handed it to Aziraphale. “Warm milk with spices. I used to make it for him when he was little and feeling upset; I thought it might do him some good today as well. You should take it to him.”

Aziraphale curled his fingers around the warmth of the teapot, seeping out through the fabric of the cozy. “I’m really not sure—I don’t know that’s a good idea right now, considering.”

“Listen, love,” she stepped forward and framed his face with her delicate palms, looking into his eyes, “I may not know much, but I know Crowley’s heart. I practically raised him. He wants to see you. I shan’t force you to do anything if your mind is made up, but I swear to you, he wants you there with him. You won’t regret it if you go.”

Aziraphale felt tears welling up in his eyes again, knew Tracy didn’t miss them with the way she was scrutinizing him so closely. His voice broke on them as he asked, barely above a whisper: “How do you know? How do you know I won’t just get my heart broken all over again?”

“Because I always know, dear.” She withdrew her hands and pointed at her temple, winking. “All right here, it is. Everything’s going to be just fine.” 

Aziraphale wasn’t sure exactly what to think about that, but after a moment he swallowed and nodded. He wanted to see Crowley too, wanted to be near him, despite everything that had happened. 

He thanked her one last time, placed the teapot with its cozy on a small tray along with a single mug, and turned towards the stairs leading up to the Palace above. 

\--------------------

Grace’s soothing voice brushed up against Crowley’s frayed nerves, not quite what he needed in that moment but close enough at least to not cause any further ire. She had Iris’ head pillowed in her lap, one hand holding the book she was reading from aloft while the other stroked through Iris’ waving hair, the Queen’s eyes sliding ever further to closed at the gentle ministrations.

Crowley watched them with a feeling of deep jealousy. He wasn’t proud of that, especially considering what they had to go through to achieve such domestic peace, but he couldn’t deny it, not to himself. Grace had been reading from the book in her hand for nearly an hour now. She and Tracy had both been bustling about earlier when Crowley had swanned in from his conversation with Aziraphale, had seen the state he’d been in. They had been trying to calm him for most of the day, letting him bury himself under the covers to sleep the rest of the daylight hours away without comment, and even now he was pretty sure this reading business was more for his sake than for Iris’.

Not that he had heard a word that had been spoken since she had started. His mind was too caught up in what had happened with Aziraphale that afternoon. He just didn’t understand what had gone wrong. He had been trying to tell the other man about the nature of his marriage, not reject him outright. Gods knew rejecting him was the last thing on his mind. Why had Aziraphale jumped straight to that idea? Had Crowley given him the idea that he wasn’t wanted? Crowley couldn’t bear the thought.

If Crowley hadn’t been so hasty and kissed him when he had so obviously been upset, they might have had an actual conversation about the whole debacle. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking. The afternoon had been going so well up to that point, Aziraphale relaxed and radiant on his horse. And Crowley had gone and fucked it all up. He had known better than to go chasing after him in the fallout of the kiss; there was no way on Earth that conversation would have gone well.

He had decided, after a nap had settled the worst of the pain and panic, that the best course of action was to wait until tomorrow and send a note down to Aziraphale to read. Perhaps he could ask him to meet Crowley in the library, somewhere neutral and private they could talk, or perhaps he would simply spill his secrets out on a page and let Aziraphale process it in the peace of his own quarters. Crowley wasn’t sure what would be easiest for him, and he didn’t want to shock the poor man any more than he already had.

Either way, he just had to hope that Aziraphale forgave him. For fumbling his confession so very poorly, for the most ill-timed first kiss ever conceived of. For his own rashness and ineptitude. If Aziraphale could forgive him, could let Crowley make it up to him, everything would be alright. Crowley wasn’t sure quite how he intended to do the making up bit yet, but he would think of something.

None of them stirred in particular when the door to the chambers clicked and opened, heralding the return of Tracy. She had insisted on going off and making him warm milk like she had when he was a child. He had appreciated the thought, he really had, but he was a grown man with real, adult problems, not a boy of ten with a scraped-up knee. Somehow he doubted warm milk was going to be much help. 

After a moment Grace’s voice faltered in her reading, which caused Crowley to look up at her. She was gazing behind him, towards the door, and had an expression of something like alarm on her face. Crowley followed her startled gaze and took in a sharp breath.

Rather than Tracy, it was Aziraphale hovering on the edge of their little circle.

Crowley was on his feet before he even registered that standing was something he should do. “Aziraphale!” he yelped. “What’re you—I mean, I thought you’d—”

“T-tracy sent me,” Aziraphale replied. His eyes flickered back and forth between where Iris and Grace were still cuddled up on the couch and where Crowley stood, terror obvious within them. “I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I brought—” he held the teapot like a shield before him.

Crowley’s arms extended out in front of him as though he were trying to calm a spooked animal before it bolted. Judging from the way Aziraphale was holding himself, he probably wasn’t far off. “It’s alright, angel. You haven’t interrupted anything.” He glanced over at Grace and Iris, who were giving him slightly confused looks but who nodded reassuringly to Aziraphale anyway. “Why don’t you come and have a seat? Er, here—” he settled back in to one corner of the sofa he had been sprawled on, condensing himself on one side to give Aziraphale room to perch without touching him. He wasn’t entirely sure such a touch would be welcome at that point.

Across from them, Grace and Iris shared a meaningful look. Iris gracefully maneuvered herself up off of her lover’s lap, but grasped Grace’s hand again almost immediately, twining their fingers together. Aziraphale, now seated after setting his burden down on the side table, stared at those hands as though they might bite him.

“So,” Crowley said, “This is—what I was trying to tell you earlier, I wasn’t—I think we may have had a bit of a miscommunication.”

Aziraphale burbled a small, almost hysterical laugh at that, his eyes still fixated on Grace and Iris’ clasped hands.

“What Crowley means by that,” Grace supplied, apparently about done with Crowley’s bungling of the situation, “Is that he thinks you’re really fit and wasn’t trying to turn you down at all, only trying to tell you that his marriage was arranged because both parties fancy people of their own gender.” Iris, Crowley, and Aziraphale all looked at her, briefly aghast. “What? It’s _true_.”

Aziraphale seemed to take that all in for a moment, breathing deeply and evenly. When he turned to Crowley, his eyes were guarded. “Is that true?”

“Well—yeah,” Crowley admitted, wishing he’d had just a little bit less of the wine the three of them had been nursing before Aziraphale arrived. He struggled with words on the best of days, and between the fuzziness in his head and the swirling chaos of emotions in his chest he was having a hell of a time producing anything moderately coherent to say. “I meant to tell you when I asked you about the job yesterday. About the marriage thing, not the…well. Yeah. It’s true. Sorry I made a bit of a mess out of it.”

Across from them, Iris and Grace shared another of their meaningful looks, and rose to their feet as one. “We’re going to bed,” Iris said definitively, looking between them and smiling softly at Aziraphale. “We’ll see you two in the morning.” With a quiet goodnight from Grace and a couple of less-than-subtle winks in Crowley’s direction that made him flush, they slipped off towards Grace’s attached quarters. 

Crowley looked over to Aziraphale, who looked back at him rather blankly for a few moments. 

“Do you know,” Aziraphale said eventually, “this is not at all how I expected today to go.”

Crowley barked a surprised laugh at that. “I know the feeling.”

“The other thing that Grace said…” 

Crowley froze, swallowed. “Yeah?”

“Was that part true too? Do you—it’s not just me?” 

The vulnerability in that last question cut Crowley deep to the bone. “Aziraphale, when I kissed you this afternoon, I meant it. Again, I’m sorry I fucked up the whole thing so badly, but whatever the shitty timing, it was real. I don’t want you to think that you have to do anything you aren’t comfortable with! You can be my valet or whatever even if you don’t want to—if you don’t want me like that. But yeah, I…I like you.”

The storm of emotions raging behind Aziraphale’s eyes seemed to match the one still swirling in his own chest. He saw disbelief, defiance, hope, and an endless, yawning fear flit across his expression before it settled on something like determination. 

Aziraphale slid across the sofa towards him, slowly but purposefully closing the distance between them. Crowley’s breath stuttered as Aziraphale put a hand on his knee, his shoulder, looking into his eyes the whole time as he pressed their bodies together. Crowley wasn’t sure which one of them took the final plunge and brought their lips together. It seemed to happen as naturally as breathing, as inevitable as two stars crashing together. 

This was much, much, better than the fumbling mess of a kiss they had shared earlier. Aziraphale was warm and soft against the front of him, the salt taste of his tears a welcome absence. Crowley ran the tip of his tongue along the seam of Aziraphale’s lips until they parted with a little gasp, letting out a deep groan of his own when his angel’s tongue pressed hesitantly to his own. They moved together like this for a little while, just exploring each other’s mouths, keeping their roving hands to semi-respectable places.

Before too long, though, Crowley pulled back. “We should…we should take this slow.” Aziraphale looked almost drunk with how glassy his eyes, the blush now taken full possession of his face. His lips were as flushed as the rest of him, the kiss-darkened plumpness of them a temptation it took all of Crowley’s rather lacking self-control to resist.

“You’re right,” Aziraphale said, though he looked visibly disappointed about it. “Yes, that’s…very sensible. Right.” He started to pull fully back and away, but Crowley stopped him from going too far with a hand on his thigh.

“Stay here, tonight,” he pleaded. “Not for—we don’t have to do anything. There’s special quarters for you next to Grace’s, you could stay there. Or, I mean, the bed’s big enough for a whole whale. You could share it with me and we could just…just be together.”

Aziraphale looked at him with hooded eyes. “Is that what you want?”

Crowley searched his face, looking for any sign of hesitation or resignation. He found none. “If you’re comfortable with it, yeah.” He fiddled with a stray bit of fabric for a moment, nervous. “I’m worried that if you slip away from me you’ll change your mind.”

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale breathed, “I don’t think I’m going anywhere anytime soon.”

True to their word, when they made it into the uncharted expanse of the royal bed a little while later, they didn’t do more than tangle their fingers together beneath the linens. But still, Crowley thought idly as he listened to Aziraphale’s breathing slow and even out beside him, he felt more comfortable in that moment than he could remember being in a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, this story will be going on a temporary hiatus! I'm running the Trickety-Boo Halloween event (check it out at https://tricketyboo2020.tumblr.com/post/625278518200352768/now-announcing-trickety-boo-we-are-excited-to) and I need the time to work on stuff for that. Don't worry though, it's not being abandoned completely!


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